


Born Under Punches

by MooseFeels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Journalist Castiel, M/M, Monster Boy Sam, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 21,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam starts turning into something, and Dean has to protect him. <br/>Fast forward a few years and Dean is still protecting Sam as a journalist starts poking around the house that they live in together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean is sixteen when he first sees the beginnings of what will be Sam’s wings. He’d seen the beginning of his horns a few weeks back and the strangeness of Sam’s feet had been hard to hide for a few years now, but this-

This is apocalyptic.

Poor Sammy is twelve and small when Dean holds him by the shoulders as he runs an ace bandage over his chest and under his armpits over and over and says, “Whatever you do, don’t tell Dad.”

Because Dean knows what John will do.

Dean knows that despite the talk and the promises and the glares-

Dean knows John will kill Sammy for this.

“I’m going to...I’m gonna make this okay, Sam. You have to trust me,” Dean says. Sam grunts a little as Dean pulls the bandage tight. He helps his brother into his shirt and his hoodie, and he passes. He looks like he’s just got bad posture, which is fine. John won’t notice that and no one else will, either. “Don’t tell anyone. Especially Dad. I’ll take care of everything.”

Dean reaches a point of talking where he’s not really talking to Sam, he’s reassuring himself. “I’ll pick you up from the diner. Here’s fifteen bucks. Lots of protein, you’re a growing boy,” he says.

Sam nods, a little pale, a little scared, and he leaves their shitty hotel room.

Dean waits until he can’t see his little brother anymore, and then he pulls the tall bottle of whiskey out of his backpack and opens it.

He pours about half of it down the sink and takes a swig of it himself- Dad will smell it on him and think it’s safe. He then pulls the plastic bag with three little pills in it out of his shirt pocket and dumps them into the bottle. He hopes that there’s not much in them but flunitrazepam, that he’s not giving his dad something that will kill him.

It might be easier that way, though.

Dean waits, edgy and wired and nervous, holding the bottle and watching the television, until his Dad comes in.

John looks at Dean, who has let his head flop in a calculated display of laziness. Drunkenness.

John motions for the bottle and Dean passes it to him.

John takes a swig. “Where’s your brother?” He barks.

“Studying,” Dean slurs. “LIbrary.”

John walks into the bathroom and slams the door shut. He’s still got the whiskey.

Dean waits for thirty minutes, and then he carefully opens the door to the bathroom.

John is sitting on the toilet, pants on, shower running. Bottle in his hands. Asleep.

Dean reaches so damn carefully into his pocket, hoping his fingers are the lightest they’ve ever been. Takes the keys and his wallet, pulling from it every insurance card, unused credit card, and all the cash he can find. About six hundred dollars.

Dean grabs Sam’s bag and his own and drives as fast as he can to the diner to grab his brother.

Dean holds onto the steering wheel for five minutes, and then he goes into the trunk. He’s known this day was coming, it’s why he snagged an old plate the last time he was at Bobby’s. He peels the stickers off of the current plate and sticks them onto this one. Screwdrivers the thing off and puts the one Dad doesn’t know about on. He walks around back and throws it into the trash can, in the kitchen stuff Dad won’t dig through.

“Settle your bill and let’s go,” Dean says when he gets to the table where his brother is sitting.

Sam nods gravely and places the ten on the table. They lope out of that place, and Dean drives out of town.

They don’t say anything until they’re about a hundred or so miles away from that place and their dad and Sam says, “What’s happening to me?”

Dean grips the steering wheel and grinds his teeth in his mouth. He looks over at his brother, who actually is slouching now, sitting low in his seat with his shoulders pulled protectively over his chest.

“I’ll take care of it,” Dean says, instead of answering the question. “You’ll be safe. I promise, Sammy. I promise.”

Sam whimpers in response.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel hates this goddamn car. He bought it right out of high school with all of the money he had scraped together from working in kitchens and bars. It was an alright car about ten years ago. It’s a piece of shit now.

He hates the faulty tape deck and the sticky ignition and the god damn motherfucking broke to shit fucking cigarette lighter. He hasn’t had a smoke since Wichita and he’s getting fucking antsy.

See, Castiel smokes like a fucking chimney and he listens to old Velvet Underground tapes like he’s got a monkey on his back, mostly because he used to.

His editors don’t complain about the trail of smoke anymore, though. Nearly ODing in the editor’s office will do that, actually. Should have tried that shit years ago. Granted, it meant he lost his job at a real paper, at a respectable paper, but at least no one at the tabloid gives him any kind of shit about his time on the road or his expense reports or his smoking. Goddamn. Zachariah looked like he was going to have an actual stroke every time Castiel tried to actually write in that fucking office.

Castiel drives and swears to himself in this particular stretch of middle-American bullshit prairie until the signs point to a rest stop, and he pulls over to buy himself a lighter and a pack of Marlboro fucking Reds, because hey, it’s been three hours and he needs the goddamn smoke.

The inbred, mouth-breathing hick of a cashier takes Castiel’s twenty and gives him his change, his lighter and his cigarettes. A skinny receipt on onion paper. Castiel pulls a cig out with shaking hands, and when he finally lights up, it feels like surfacing in a pool. It makes him feel just clear headed enough that he hears a kid in the back of the station say, “I’m telling you, the Winchester place is freaky.”

Castiel nearly knocks over a display of Cool Power Munchitos, he turns around so fast.

* * *

 

Sam knows he’s not agoraphobic, but he thinks maybe is brother is for him.

“You sure you can do that?” Dean asks. “I don’t want-”

“Dean, I thought I heard gunfire, okay? And no one’s going to see me, I’ll wear my...I’ll wear my stuff,” he answers.

Dean grits his teeth and nods. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, okay.”

They have an agreement. Sam can do all the housework he wants, all the cooking, all the cleaning, as long as he stays inside. He can do all the yardwork he wants when the sun is down. Sam does housework, yardwork, Dean will bring home whatever book or movie or magazine Sam wants, no questions asked, no exceptions. In fact, Dean will do a lot of stuff no questions asked. He’ll leave the house, he’ll help Sam order clothes online, he’ll buy organic-free-range-grass-fed whatever. Dean will do anything except let Sam out of the house.

“I’ll be fine,” Sam says. “I’ll be safe.”

Dean nods again. “I’ve got my phone. I’ll be at the garage. Call me if you need me,” he says.

Sam sits in his bedroom until he’s sure his brother has left, and then he stretches his wings and flutters down from his perch. His feet ache a little as he hits the ground, scaly talons spreading slightly as he lands. His wings are just large enough to support him as he goes to the ground, but they’re heavy as he stands, trying on his back muscles and calves and feet. At least the little horns at the top of his head don’t ache like they used to- when he was fourteen and they started actually coming in, he seriously considered trepanation.

Sam’s considered a lot of things, though, things to make trepanation seem pretty minor.

His pants don’t quite fit- they want to slip over his feet and down his hips and waist to the floor. Sam wears them anyway, because there’s something very humanizing about wearing clothes, especially when you’re not quite sure you’re human anymore.

* * *

The drive to the garage is the most therapeutic part of Dean’s day. The car is Dean’s safe space, the place where he forgets about his fucked up childhood and adulthood, about his brother who might or might not be human, about the dangers of being found, about whether or not his dad is still kicking around- the car is where Dean forgets about everything, and that’s great.

He turns up the volume on his tape deck and he tries not to think about the fact that Sam wants to go outside to pick some of his apples today and how that will probably end in disaster and another move.

Dean likes Woodlane. It’s been good to them. He likes the big, fucked up Victorian house they live in. He likes his job. He likes the library for Sam, he likes his internet access, he likes that no one asks him questions and the neighbor kids leave him alone. He likes the solitude of it. He likes the solitude of it so much he could scream.

He’s not really paying attention when he rides the curve into town, so when he hears a horn blaring at him and sees a middle finger extended in his back window, he’s jarred out of his reverie and back into the real world.

“What the fuck?” He murmurs, and he drives on.

* * *

The kid had dark hair and unsual features for this part of the country- don’t expect many Asian kids in this part of bumfuck nowhere. “The Winchester place,” he repeated. “There’s something weird there. I don’t know.”

“Weird how?” Castiel drawls. “Weird like they don’t mow their lawn weird or weird like-”  He waves his hands in the air abstractly before settling on air quotes, “-spooky?”

“Spooky,” the kid blurts. “Definitely spooky. Hella spooky.”

“This isn’t California, kid, don’t say that shit,” Castiel says. “Ghosts spooky? Elvis spooky? Wax museum spooky?”

“Ghosts spooky,” the kid continues. “Like...there’s something there, in the house. I’ve seen the shadows in the curtains and there’s something that leaves in the middle of the night. It’s weird, okay? It’s weird.”

Castiel nods. Says, “Where is this place?” as he fishes out his wallet.

“Down the road,” the kid answers. “You take that turn and then you go a little further, like a mile, and then it’s that big Victorian place out near the woods.”

Castiel fishes his wallet out of his pocket and hands the kid his last, sweaty five. “Thanks,” he says. “Go buy yourself a milkshake.”

Less than ten minutes in this hick-town and he’s already got a lead.

* * *

 

The bandages tug tight across his chest, but it’s better than the alternative.

They tug his wings up close to his body and make him look less like the extraordinary kind of freak and more like the ordinary kind of freak. Like the kind of thing you just pity instead of shoot. The bandages also make it damn near impossible for him to breathe, which lends some credibility to the story that Sam is home schooled because he’s sickly. Because he’s sick. It’s why he’s always inside, it’s why he wears so much clothing, it’s why he can’t quite breathe- it’s why everything. Why he doesn’t talk to people or try to make friends.

He has his long wings pulled in as close as he can get them without breaking the bones, and the edges trail down just a bit, to his calves. That gets hidden by the coat and the shirt, though, and Sam slips a t-shirt over his head as best he can without pulling on the wrappings too hard.

In the tennis shoes, his feet look normal. In the coat and hat and bandages, Sam almost looks normal. He passes.

It feels so damn good to get sunlight on his face and feel the wind wrap around him. It feels so normal and natural and real.

Sam’s never, ever been normal, but in these moments he can at least pretend.

He lopes off to the back of the property, where the yard begins to turn into woods, and not long after that the woods turn into the apple trees that someone abandoned out here years ago. Many of them have already begun to drop rotted fruit, but there are still dozens of ripe, sweet apples on the high branches.

Sam picks one and takes a bite. Feels the texture of it, the dirt on the skin. The taste of it in his mouth. The way it tastes so different outside and wild. Free.

What Sam would give to be free.


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel nearly hits some goddamn maniac in a classic on the way to the house that has the lead. The house that is the lead. Whatever.

It comes up into view like a mountain in the distance. The flat, midwestern landscape makes it stick out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of dying, amber grass. It’s clearly an old house- not Victorian modeled or revival or something, it’s the real deal. There’s curlicue molding in chipped white paint, high contrast against the emerald green of the fishscale wood paneling. An ornate fence in cast iron surrounds the  property. A dead tree in the front yard. It sits right at the edge of a wood, relatively young judging by the thin texture of the trees and the sparse way they’re spread over the earth. Mostly thin pine, a few brilliant orange deciduous trees interspersed. Castiel parks his car at the side of the road and studies the whole scene for a long, long time.

It certainly looks spooky. A little underkept, the dead grass and trees. The chipping paint, the rust along the fence. The long curtains in the downstairs windows, the shutters up top. The enormous open attic window.

Yeah, if there’s something in this town, it’s either the little strip mall church or this house, which might as well have waltzed out of the kind of movie where witches are the main character’s aunts.

Castiel pulls a notepad out of his breast pocket and quietly sketches out his thoughts on the place. Nothing too fancy, just a physical description and a few bullshit things about the texture of the autumn air and the asphalt under his feet and the ocean of dead grass, all around like some salted sea. He smirks at it momentarily before he tosses it into the passenger seat and goes to restart his car when the engine grinds and grinds and grinds and backfires and then gives up on him.

Castiel takes a deep breath and then physically hits the steering wheel as hard as he can. Shouts, “Fuck!” Glances momentarily at his dead cell phone and shouts, “Goddamnit!”

He pulls a pillbox out of his shirt pocket and yanks out two ibuprofen for the raging headache he can already feel coming.

This is an old road with one old house. It’s likely there isn’t anyone there. It’s likely that he’ll have to walk all the way back to town to get a tow for his piece of shit fucking car.

Castiel sits for a long moment, counts to ten, and then gets out. Starts walking to the old house not too far in the distance. Coughs against the cold air.

* * *

 

Sam hears the noise and freezes midstep, right near the old apple trees.

There’s the bang and the unsettling noise as birds lift up from the ground and fly off. Sam listens for a long, long time and breathes in and out. Tries to calm down and convince himself that it’s not another gunshot, that it could be a whole number of things, that he should stop panicking.

He looks at the dark forms of the birds flying away and wishes that he knew how to use his own wings. It’s not that he hasn’t tried, it’s that they’re a little too small and a little misshapen. He suspects that if this had happened when he was younger, or if he had been...if he’d been a baby when he’d had them, they’d be strong and good. They’d be healthy. They’re not right though. They’re a deformity.

Sam huffs a laugh to himself as he turns around and starts walking briskly back to the house. He can’t even be a monster right.

He’s just emerged from out of the trees and he’s right back up to the house when he hears someone cry, “Hey!”

Sam looks up from the ground so fast he goes dizzy.

It’s a stranger. Some man, shorter than he is by several inches, with dark hair. He looks a little too thin, like someone who lost a lot of weight really fast a couple of years ago and has never quite adjusted. “Hey!” he says again. “Can you help me?”

Sam remembers what he knew of hunting damn well. He remembers things like sick strangers that are more than strangers asking for help. He remembers that sometimes monsters are just people with more mundane evils inside of them.

Sam weights his back leg, a defensive posture. “I don’t know,” he answers. “Can I?”

The stranger has a deep voice, a little rough. “My car broke down,” he answers. He’s far enough away that he has to speak loudly, far enough away that Sam is sure he could make the sprint to the house, lock up, and grab the shotgun if he needed to. “Do you have like a phone or something so that I can call...a fuckin’ tow, I don’t know. Shit, do you guys even have a garage out here?”

There’s something overwhelmingly natural to his words, something unplanned, and that relaxes Sam just barely. “Give me a minute,” he answers. “Let me grab a phone book.”

Sam knows the number for the tow service damn well, but he needs a minute. More than a minute, really, to compose himself. He unlocks the back door, steps in, and relocks it. Dashes to the bathroom as fast as he can in his shoes to check his hat, his jacket, his everything. He’s well hidden, he’ll be okay. Grabs a phone-book absentmindedly, looks at it, and tosses it aside. He takes another deep breath, to still the shaking of his hands, and unlocks the front door.

The stranger is on the front porch, sitting on the rusted metal chair. He has a tired face and blue eyes. A cigarette hangs out of his mouth despite his deep cough. Sam dials Dean and as the number rings he says, “My brother works at the garage. I’ll call him for you.”

The stranger coughs a few more times and nods. “Thanks,” he rumbles.

Dean answers quickly. “Yeah?” he says gruffly.

“Car broke down just down the road. The guy is at the house. He needs a tow,” Sam explains. He hopes the panic in his voice isn’t too clear to the stranger. He hopes it’s clear to Dean.

“I’ll be right there,” he answers, but Sam knows that means about twenty minutes, with the distance to town and the weight of the rig working against them.

Sam hangs up and tries to smile. “Sorry,” he says, “It might be a little while. Town is a ways out.”

The stranger nods. “Thanks,” he says. “You got a name kid?”

“Do you?” Sam shoots back.

The stranger does something with his face- not quite a smile. “Castiel,” he answers. “Castiel Novak.”

“Sam,” he replies. “What are you doing out here?” He knows they’re out of the way. Dean did that on purpose.

“Looking for spooky shit,” Castiel answers with a shrug and a low cough. “Kid in town sent me this way.”

Sam frowns. He leans against the door frame- he can’t sit comfortably with his wings bound up, and he can’t really take off his coat either. “Spooky?” he asks.

Castiel nods. He stomps out his cigarette and pulls out his back. Taps it against his wrist and pulls out a long thin smoke. “Yeah,” he answers, lighting up. “Fuckin’, I travel around and I look for weird shit, you know? Mystery spots, haunted houses, creepy graveyards, whatever. I’m a writer for a tabloid, you know? Get paid to travel around, sleep in crappy hotels and hunt up whatever weirdness middle America has to offer me.” He laughs a little and looks over at Sam. “Whatever’s not natural, you feel me?”

And Sam frowns, because, yeah, he does feel that.

He feels that like the first twelve years of his life.

“Excuse me,” he says, and he heads back inside.

* * *

 

 

Man, the kid is weird. There’s something a little too flinchy and paranoid for Castiel’s liking about him, something that just fucking screams child abuse, and while that’s scary as hell, he doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t know what to make of a teenager who wears all of that clothing and moves like a stranger in his own skin (okay, fucking more than usual) and fucking looks like he’s about to have a panic attack at everything Castiel says. It’s a fucking relief when he ducks back into the weird ass house and leaves him alone on the porch to smoke in peace.

His lungs still have that pneumonic ache, and the tobacco doesn’t help, but it does help the overwhelming irritation at fucking everything and for now, that’s more pressing than lung cancer.

The tow truck comes down the road. Castiel can see it coming a long ways off.

“Thanks,” he calls over his shoulder. “Be...fucking...whatever, have a good life or some shit. Don’t do drugs.”

He starts walking down the road.

The tow makes it to the fucking car about the same time he does, and the guy who climbs out of the cab assess the car seriously and says, “Are you serious?”

The guy, the kid’s brother, presumably, has brown-blonde hair and god help Castiel fucking freckles. He looks like God, Mom, and Apple Pie rolled up into one muscular farmbo- mechanic. Ridiculous. Beautiful. Castiel pulls out of that thought just in time to say, “Serious?”

The guy kicks the car and says, “What did you do to her?”

“Do to who?” Castiel answers.

The guy rolls his eyes. “Your car. You’ve got a beautiful machine, you should have another good ten, fifteen years on her. What did you do?”

Castiel frowns. “Shit,” he retorts. “I don’t know, I drove it?”

The guy extends his hand outward. “Dean Winchester,” he offers. “I’ll get it set up while I fill out your paperwork.”

“Sam’s brother, right?” Castiel asks.

“What?” Dean asks. He’s trying to sound casual. Castiel can tell. He can read that barely panicked edge to his voice.

“Your brother,” Castiel says, “He called you for me. Tall kid. Terrible clothes.”

Dean looks mildly relieved. “Oh!” He says. “Oh, yeah, Sammy. Yeah, he’s my brother. Sorry.”

“You seem protective,” he continues as Dean ducks back into his truck to pull out a form on a clipboard.

Dean shrugs again- a gesture he seems to have in common with his little brother. “It’s just us,” he says by way of answering.

Oh, Castiel thinks. Well that’ll fuckin’ do it. “How old is he? Seventeen?”

“Nineteen,” Dean answers with an eyebrow raised. “Look, you mind fillin’ that out while I work?”

“Fuck,” Castiel says, looking at it, “sorry, yeah. No problem. So just you and him?”

“Car accident,” Dean grunts as he bends to look at Castiel’s long dented fender.

“How sad,” Casitel mumbles, writing his name into the blank, his phone number, his editor’s credit card information. “I take it that’s the old homestead?”

Dean stands up (tragic, because it means his plush ass doesn’t push against his jeans the same way) and frowns at him. “It’s personal,” he says. “Anyone tell you you’re nosy?”

“I’m a journalist,” he answers. “My job to hunt this shit down.”

“Pardon?” he asks, a little too loudly.

“I’m a journalist,” Castiel repeats. “I’m professionally nosy.”

“Oh,” Dean answers. “Sorry, thought you said something about hunting.”

Castiel places the clipboard on the hood of the tow truck and looks at what Dean’s looking at. Maybe. Castiel doesn’t know much about cars.

“Got an ethical problem with real hunting,” Castiel says. He crosses his heart with his fingers absentmindedly. “Do no harm, you feel me?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I’ll tow you into town,” he says. “Garage will fix you up. You got family to stay with or-”

“Was planning to sleep in the fuckin’ car,” Castiel answers. It’s not entirely honest. It’s a baldfaced lie. But hey, he hasn’t been fucked in a long time, and there’s something beautiful if a little worrying and a little boring about Dean. Something both dangerous and terribly ordinary. Whatever’s going on in that house, it’s fucked up but it looks like the normal kind of fucked up- two poor brothers living on their own in the wake of personal tragedy or some shit. He’s a little too sharp but he’s also muscular and tanned and freckly and strong and gorgeous. Like a pin-up. Castiel certainly isn’t staring at Dean’s plush lips when he asks, “You wouldn’t happen to kno-”

“There’s a motel. Not a far walk from the garage,” Dean interrupts. “Get in.”

Castiel doesn’t even bother asking if he can smoke, just lights up and hopes it irritates him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The guy smokes like a chimney. His name is strange, both in his rough voice and weird handwriting on the piece of paper. He has the window open, and while that vents a fair amount of the smoke, it still bleeds into the cab and makes Dean cough. It smells like John, more than anything.  
The guy finishes one cigarette and immediately lights a new one. He looks over at Dean and says, “Sorry, you don’t mind do you?”  
He’s slumped in the passenger seat. He’s a little shorter than Dean, but not by much- maybe an inch or two. He’s a good deal more slight, though. There’s a certain frailty to his wiryness, to the way his muscle is strung almost fatless over his frame. Boney and hard. His dark hair is a little too long, like he hasn’t washed it or cut it in too long and stubble creeps over his face.   
Dean shakes his head. Looks back to the road.  
They’re eight minutes from town when Dean says, “What’s your name again?”  
The guy says, “Cas Novak. You’re Dean Winchester.”   
“You’re a journalist?” Dean asks. “What are you doing all the way out here, in the sticks?”  
“Looking for the fuckin’ weird,” he answers, exhaling the smoke. “I don’t write for anything too important, just tabloids. Still like for stuff to be real, if I can help it. Write a lot of shitty tone-poem type pieces about being haunted by the past and the ghosts of the wind.” He rolls his eyes. “Tabloids, man. They want strange monsters as long as they’re not too real, and newspapers, they want real monsters as long as they’re not too strange.” There’s bitterness inside the statement that extends over into the way he sucks down the tobacco.  
This guy, he’s doing it like he means it.   
“What kind of monsters you looking for here?” Dean asks.  
The guy, Cas, he looks over at him and his eyes whip up and whip down. Sharp and alien. He looks different suddenly- he doesn’t just look fucked up and strange, he looks dangerous. He looks at Dean and turns. Says, “You tell me.”

The garage is small but busy. The tow stops in the generous lot of it and he and Dean climb out of the thing. It sits a good goddamn five feet off the ground, but Castiel makes the jump easy enough.   
Dean looks at the car and the garage. He hands him a card and says, “Look, so we’ve had a rash of car problems in town and I can’t guarantee that this’ll get fixed anytime...anytime in the week.” He sighs heavily. “I can guarantee you that we’re the best garage in the county and that I could probably talk to Chuck who runs the motel and see about getting you a pretty good discount.”   
Castiel takes the card and puts it in his pocket.   
Dean points down the street. “It’s that way,” he says, lamely. “I can walk you there or help you get your stuff there or-”  
“I’ll be fine,” he interrupts. It’s the first thing he’s said since he asked the question that Dean didn’t answer. Or didn’t answer the question Dean asked. Whichever. Both.   
It hangs between them like a goddamn grenade.  
You tell me.  
“I’ll be fuckin’ fine,” he continues. He reaches into the car and grabs his duffle bag and computer. He walks off in the direction Dean pointed him.  
The roads in this town are shitty. The street he’s walking down, the strip malls are empty and the restaurants are shuttered. This is a dying town, probably be gone entirely in a generation or two. The asphalt crumble underfoot.  
His bag’s shoulder strap has begun to dig into his skin, but what appears to be the motel comes into view soon enough.   
It’s a long, low building in ugly yellow stucco. Blue letters read Dew Drop Inn! Castiel rolls his eyes at it. Every incestuous little ghost town this side of the Mississippi has one, and they’re all the same despite all of their differences. He walks in to the over potpourri’d lobby and rings the rusted desk bell.  
A short man with curly hair approaches the desk and says, “Are you Mr. Novak? I already got a call from the garage.”  
Castiel twitchily pulls another cig from his pocket. “Of fuckin’ course you did,” he answers.  
The guy’s eyes go huge. “Is this not okay? I mean, I can-”  
“It’s fine,” Castiel says, leaning against the counter and twisting his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s fine. Look, what can you tell me about the Winchester brothers?”

Sam sits alone in the house until Dean comes home and flicks on the lights and asks with an ocean of worry in him, “You okay?”  
“Is he gone?” he asks.  
“He’s in town,” Dean answers, sitting down on the floor in front of Sam. He crosses his legs and leans forward to look Sam in the eye. “He’ll be gone soon. I’ve pushed his repair to priority.” He moves forward a little more and rests his hands on Sam’s legs. “You’re safe, okay? You’re safe.”  
He reaches forward and pull the hat off of Sam’s head. It catches on the slight points of his horns.   
Sam wipes his nose against the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he says softly. “I got my wings done and then I started again and I couldn’t- I-”  
Dean looks down and sees that Sam’s still in his shoes. “You want help out of those?”  
“My hands won’t stop shaking,” he replies.  
Dean cuffs the bottoms of Sam’s jeans gently, revealing the beginnings of his scaly feet. His big hands, which are calloused from the garage and from other things, are so delicate as he unlaces the sneakers and tugs them off. Sam stretches his foot, his three talons flexing.   
“They don’t hurt, do they, Big Bird?” Dean asks. The nickname’s been around since they moved out here, almost eight years ago now. Affectionate and normalizing. Almost makes Sam feel okay.  
“No,” he answers. “Just sore.” His feet hate the shoes- they’d probably be fine bare outside, but what if what happened today happened again what if it happened right now what if-  
“Hey,” Dean murmurs, “Hey, hey, Sammy, deep breaths, okay? Deep breaths.” He scoots forward and tugs his brother into his arms. Holds him close and tight. “You’re safe, okay? We’re safe.”   
Sam doesn’t believe his brother. Not this time.

Chuck is a nervous man- flighty- but he blossoms like a damn rose with a shot or two of bourbon in him.   
“Oh, yeah,” he says, “yeah, they moved into the old LaFitte place about...eight? Eight years ago?”   
“Just them?” Castiel asks. He’s trying to sound casual. People will say damn near anything if you sound casual.   
Chuck thinks for a long moment. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, there was talk of their old man, laid up on some kind of death bed for a couple of years. Some kind of...crazy recessive illness in the family or something? It’s what took their dad and it’s why the uh...the younger one doesn’t leave the house.”  
Castiel pauses, mid-reach, for the bottle. “Doesn’t leave the house?” He asks.  
Chuck nods, his curly hair shaking a little with the motion. “He was homeschooled, didn’t go to college, doesn’t come out. I’ve seen the kid...maybe twice? Skinny. Real twitchy.”  
Castiel looks at the clock. It’s barely nine. He yawns dramatically anyway, though. “Shit,” he murmurs. “I am fucking bushed.”  
“Oh!” Chuck cries. “Oh, sorry! Yeah, go ahead and hit the hay.”  
Castiel smiles at him. If it weren’t for the wedding band, he might offer the guy a little something more for his trouble. “Thanks for the drink,” he says, and wanders back to his room, careful to move a little sluggishly, like he’s drunk.  
He’s not even fucking buzzed.   
No, Castiel is seeing something here- a story. And even if it isn’t a story for Dick Roman at the damn tabloid, this is important. There’s something here.   
There’s something about the Winchester brothers, and he’s going to find out what.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel drags his computer out of his duffle bag and sets up on the bed.  
 

Lots of people like desks. Hell, lots of people like a nuclear family situation with a white picket fence and a little wife at home while the big strong husband goes off to bring home the bacon and hey, that might be good for them but it’s all kinds of fucked up in its own way, so Castiel will sit on the bed and type like the crazy asshole that he knows he is.

He also starts with google, first thing, because as long as he’s being crazy, why not throw in a healthy dash of damnfool to boot.

He tries just names. ‘Dean Winchester’ pulls up nothing but LinkedIn and Facebook profiles for other people in brighter places. ‘Sam Winchester’ brings up a whole bunch of nothing, or at least it looks like it and then-

Then a birth announcement.

“Oh, fuck me,” Castiel murmurs with delight.

Sam Winchester with his older brother Dean Winchester, with his mother and father- Mary and John. Some small town in the middle of Kansas that Castiel’s never heard of and never driven through.

He opens and new tab and searches “Dean Winchester, Lawrence Kansas.” Nothing. "John Winchester, Lawrence Kansas." A death, an unclaimed body in a morgue in Oregon. "Sam and Dean Winchester, Lawrence Kansas." Nothing. He's about to give up when he types, "Sam Winchester, Missing." A whim. Flight of fucking fancy.

It's that damn easy.

He sits on his bed for twenty goddamn minutes, trying to decide if he’ll call the police or not, and then he decides to walk to walk to the Winchester place if he has to. He’s got to know. He’s got to know.

He’s got to know, from Dean’s mouth himself, why he kidnapped his own brother away from their father.

* * *

 

Sam lays awake all night in his bed, staring down at the floor, trying to sleep. Trying to calm down enough to sleep.

He’s slept on his belly since his wings came in. Sometimes he can shift to his side a bit, but usually he just lies on his stomach, one arm dangling over the edge of the bed. A couple years ago, he and Dean painted glow in the dark stars on the old wooden floors- astronomically correct constellations and formations. When he sits up in the dark, he can look through the huge window in his wall and see them outside. On nights where Dean lights out- to get laid or go to a bar or travel a few states over and do a solo hunt (which he never, ever tells Sam about, but Sam knows)- he’ll climb out onto the roof and look at them on his own. He’d do it tonight- the air is brisk and cold and would feel good on his skin- but he still feels so scared.

The guy is either a journalist, or a hunter. Maybe both.

Sam is either going to be exposed, or killed. Maybe both.

He can’t figure out which would be worse.

* * *

 

Dean drinks himself to sleep, as soon as he hears Sam settled down above him.

He has strange dreams. Nightmares.

* * *

 

Bobby Singer sits on his porch in North Dakota, nursing a bottle.

A phone rings in the back of his house and he gets up. His legs are stiff. His knees creak. He is not as young as he used to be- hunters aren’t meant to live so long. Aren’t meant to outlive quite so many people. Maybe this one, he thinks, every time the phone rings. Maybe this one.

It’s a phone that hasn’t rung in years, one that he was thinking about renumbering, rewiring. A number he’s hung onto out of blind, stupid hope more than anything.

He answers it. Doesn’t say anything. A silence hangs at the other end for a long, long minute, before he finally says, “Singer Auto.”

“The Winchester brothers,” a gruff voice at the other end says.

Bobby feels his heart skip a beat.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Dean heads to the garage two hours early the next day and works with single-mindedly on the journalist’s car. He meant what he told his brother- he’s going to have this guy out of here by this afternoon.

It’s one thing when these things spook Dean. They’ve had some close calls in the past- a person passing through who looked just a little too closely at their house or at Dean or asked to hear his name a few too many times. It’s one thing if someone leaves Dean locking and unlocking the doors and checking their fence and whether or not their windows are shut. It’s another when they leave Sam shaking and unable to sleep.

The car is a long, ‘96 Volvo with a shitty yellow paint job that’s been long faded to an unfortunate, banana pastel. It’s not a beautiful car, really. It’s long and boxy and awkward and ugly in that...Volvo kind of way. But it’s a ‘96 wagon, and if the guy has had it as long as he has, he should know that it’s a damn fine car. One that needs a little love (and oil changes, Christ), but all in all a solid machine. It’s not a princess like Dean’s own baby, it’s a rambler. A family car.

Dean changes oil and he gives it another try.

No such luck.

Dean sighs heavily and rolls back under the machine.

* * *

 

Castiel wakes up at nine that morning and borrows a bike from Chuck, who turns out to

be a pretty decent guy, even when sober. It takes him a few fraught minutes to remember how the machine works (he hasn’t ridden a bike since he was a fucking teenager), and once he gets the hang of it, he heads out down the long roads towards the Winchester’s house.

Bobby Singer had answered the phone last night. Old man. Suspicious. Answered questions as guardedly as he asked them.

“Look,” he’d said, “I don’t think what Dean did was even wrong, really. The way their

Daddy was and their upbringing- you don’t know the whole story, alright?”

“Then give it to me,” Castiel had sighed at him.

Hard to smoke and ride a bike at the same time, but Castiel figures it out eventually. The curves quickly become the only thing that throw him, and even then he keeps his balance and his speed pretty well.

The Winchester house- the green monstrosity of it- appears out of the distance and

Castiel stops to look at it and to smoke for a long, long time. Sits on his bike and watches the thing like it’s a beast. Like it’s an animal.

“It’s not my story to give you,” Singer had said. “And if it was one I knew all of, I don’t reckon I’d need the missing posters. Good to know they’re alive, though. Tell them their Uncle Bobby has been mighty worried about them.”

He’d hung up on Castiel, leaving him swearing into an empty telephone line.

Castiel bikes the rest of the way down to the house.

* * *

 

There’s a  pounding at the front door, and it leaves Sam frozen at the top of the house.

Someone’s knocking, and Sam feels the knowledge of who it is spread under him, a chilly feeling. Like the time he was ten and the ice cracked under him and first he went numb and then he felt cold for hours and hours and hours.

“Anyone in there?” the guy shouts- the journalist shouts. “Look, I’d just like to fuckin’ talk, okay?”

More knocking. Sam frozen. Panicking.

He doesn’t  have his shirt on or his hat or his coat or his shoes- he;s exposed. Naked. Sam stands invisible at the top of the house and prays, prays, prays that the journalist will go away.

“Sam?” The journalist calls. “Dean? Sam?” A pause. “Look- Sam, right? You don’t leave the house, at least that’s what the people in town say. Jesus. Fuck, listen, if you’re in there and you’re listening and you’re not in a safe- in a safe place, you can come down with me? I mean...fuck, okay I don’t...shit, this wasn’t...well thought out. I get if you don’t want to come down. I also get if you do want to come down and you’re scared as hell because apparently your brother kidnapped you when you were thirteen or some shit and you’ve been in this house ever the fuck sinc-”

“It wasn’t like that!” Sam calls from the top of the stairs. He pauses. Horrified. He pauses and prays that he wasn’t heard.

“Sam?” the Journalist calls.

Sam inhales and squints his eyes shut and calls out, “It wasn’t like that; you don’t understand!”

There’s another long pause. “Then help me,” the journalist says. “Help me understand.”

“I can’t,” Sam answers. “Look, I can’t. You’re not safe, you’re a writer, you’ll tell everyone. Everyone will know and I can’t do-”

“Do you know what off the record means?”

* * *

 

Castiel says it and he waits for a long, long time. Something about these goddamn Winchester brothers and leaving big pauses in conversation. Christ.

“Off the record,” he repeats. “It means that what I ask and you answer, it stays between us. It’s a kind of...it’s as close as writers get to a code of honor.” Castiel waits a beat before he says, “It means you can trust me, kid, okay? Look, I won’t take pen or paper in there with me- I left it all at home.”

“What about your camera?” Sam calls. He’s a ways up in the house, but his voice is still clear. The open windows help, so do the old, thin walls.

“I left it at the hotel. I couldn’t take a picture if I wanted to,” he answers.

There’s a painfully long wait and then a deliberate sound of a door unlocking.

No opening, though. No invitation in. A signal, though, that there’s a choice available here.

Castiel waits and then he knocks, gently, a couple of times.

“Come in,” Sam says.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel walks into the house. It’s empty.

“I’m uh,” Sam says, “I’m in the kitchen. Behind a screen.”

“Shy?” Castiel asks.

There’s a breathed laugh. “Yeah,” he answers. “I’m shy.”

There’s a paper screen covering the doorway to the kitchen. The light projects a shadow onto it. There must be something in there with him though, maybe he’s wearing a costume or something, because the shadow is a weird shape. Doesn’t make much sense.

Castiel sits down on the floor, in front of the screen. Opens his hands wide. “Look,” he says. “No paper, no pens, no camera. Just you and me. Off the record.”

“And this means you won’t tell anyone?” Sam asks, one more time. There’s so much anxiety in his voice. It’s terrifying.

“Kid,” Castiel says, “What the hell did the world do to you?”

“Have you ever run into something you can’t explain?” Sam asks. The question is rushed and sudden. It comes out of him like he’s kept it bottled up for a long, long time. “Something that just isn’t right? Like, you’ll be in a house in the middle of the summer and there will be a part of air that’s freezing? Or you’ll be driving and look out on the road and there will be someone one moment and no one the next? People in mirror’s that shouldn’t be there?”

Castiel avoids the urge to roll his eyes. “I write for a tabloid. I hunt this stuff,” he answers.

“No, you don’t,” Sam interrupts. “We did.”

“Help me out,” he says. “What does that mean?”  
“It’s real,” Sam says. “It’s all real. Ghosts and vampires and skinwalkers- all of it’s real. And sometimes, it likes to hurt people. A lot. So my dad and my brother and I-”  
“You actually hunted it,” Castiel murmurs.

Sam’s inviting a lot more questions than he’s answering.

* * *

 

The journalist’s- Castiel’s- shadow is very small on the other side of the screen. He must be sitting cross-legged on the floor. Sam is perched on top of a barstool, which is comfortable because it doesn’t push against his wings and it gives his feet something to grasp at.

All Sam can think right now is that his brother is going to kill them both, but maybe if he can make this guy understand, he’ll actually go away. He’ll be quiet and he’ll just leave them alone, in this house like a cage and this town like a prison.

“We hunted it,” Sam answers. “Yeah.”  
“What the fuck does that mean?” Castiel asks.

Sam laughs- the guy uses so much profanity, but there’s no heat behind his words. It’s disarming, and Sam’s been armed since he was a kid. “Dean and I grew up on the road,” he says. “We went from town to town and if we found something, he and Dad took care of it. I started when I was about eleven or twelve and we found a thing, we researched it, we took care of it.”  
There’s a huffed breath. A sigh. “Look, are you fucking with me?” he asks.

Sam shakes his head, which becomes more or less invisible behind the screen. “I’m not that creative, I swear,” Sam says.

There’s a long pause. Castiel shifts in place. “So what happened? Why are you here?”

“My dad,” Sam says, “my dad is insane. Not like, literally crazy, should-go-to-a-home insane, as in...something killed my mom. Something that wasn’t right. And it broke him. And then when I started changing-”  
“Changing?” Castiel asks.

Sam flinches at the word. A wing twitches defensively. He shies away from it. He looks up at the ceiling and lets out a breath he’s been holding since he was fourteen.

“Off the record?” Sam asks, softly.

“Off the record,” Castiel answers.

* * *

 

Sam pulls back the screen, and Castiel wishes he didn’t think of himself as an honorable man.

“Please,” Sam murmurs. “Please.”  
They’re almost the same color as his hair- honey brown. There’s an occasional fleck of gold, however. Warm. The arc up over his head (his head with horns), flexed and powerful. They’re hawklike and beautiful. They move with him, with his breath and motion. So beautiful and so strange.

Wings. The kid has wings.

Castiel’s so glad he’s sitting down, because he would fall over. He becomes dizzy, suddenly and falls back onto his elbows. Runs a hand through his hair. Murmurs, “You changed.”

The kid nods a couple of times.

“And your father,” Castiel says, “Your brother saved your life.”

The kid nods some more.

Castiel looks at the kid a little more. He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. “Fuck me,” he murmurs. “Shit. I need a fuckin’ smoke.”

The kid laughs, and it’s like sunlight fills the world.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Dean drives home, tense. He works all day on that damn car for nothing. It’s not the oil or the battery or the spark plugs or the transmission or- it’s not anything he can fix quickly. He can’t get this guy out of town tonight which means there’s at least one more day of this guy poking around. Looking.

Everything about the guy makes Dean uncomfortable. It is  something about the way he sat in the truck with his cigarette. Something about the way he looked at Dean when he couldn’t answer that question. Something about the sharp way he looked at the world. About his long sleeves and his selection of music in the front seat. His blue eyes that burned like bright-hot fire into everything he sees. Something about the way he looks at Dean.

The guy knows a natural disaster when he sees one, and that’s terrifying.

Dean knows a natural disaster, too.

Dean sees his house come into view, and it’s like his heart explodes.

The front door is open. There is a bike, collapsed on the front porch.

Dean runs out of his car, so fast that his legs wobble underneath him, his ankles unsteady.

“Sam!” He calls. “Sam!”

He tears into his house and then he stops and he almost stops breathing.

Sam is sitting in his chair at the kitchen table, with the journalist, who has two coffee cups and a cigarette. They both seem to be drinking tea.

The journalist looks fascinated. Sam looks both relaxed and terrified.

Sam looks up at him and waves slightly. “Hey, Dean,” he greets. “So get this-”

“Get out,” Dean shouts. “Get out!”

Sam’s face falls. “Dean-”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dean shouts.

“Dean, please,” Sam continues.

“What the fuck are you-”

“This was my choice!” Sam shouts, and suddenly his wings flex outward, his legs spread wide and Dean sees, for the first time, how big his little brother has gotten. He pants for a moment, and he looks terrifyingly huge. Six foot four, wings spread wide. Fists clenched. “Dean, this was my choice. Castiel is- he was invited in.” He pauses, his face twisted up in pain. “This was my decision.”

Dean looks at his brother and he looks at the man seated at the table.

He has a moment, where he almost seems to fly out of his body and see everything around him- see this big, old house in the middle of nowhere, see this kitchen, this open door, this pulled back screen, these open wings, these clenched fists. He has a moment, seeing all of these things and seeing himself.

You tell me.

Dean takes a deep breath. Nods. Says, “I’ll leave you to your conversation then. Sorry I interrupted.”

Sam looks at him, and his wings fold back down. Fists unclench. He nods.

“I’ll shut the door behind me,” Dean says, and he steps out.

Walks into the crisp October evening and breathes, breathes as much as he can because if he keep breathing, he won’t turn into his father. He won’t be this angry and he won’t be that man.

 

* * *

 

Castiel watches as Dean storms out of the house and looks back to Sam, who is steadily relaxing back but still looks shaken.

Sam looks up and sits back down. He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he says, softly.

Castiel looks at Sam for a long moment and says, “He’s scared.”

Sam nods a couple of times and sits back down at the kitchen table.

He looked so small the other day, in his clothes, but with his wings out, there’s a physical presence and mass to the kid that must terrify him. Castiel remembers his own puberty pretty vividly and he can’t imagine what it’s like to go through that plus wings, plus-

“When did you stop going to school?” he asks.

Sam winces. “Ninth grade,” he answers. “They started getting too long and then my feet started messing up and then my horns started coming in- I just couldn’t do it and be safe.”

Castiel sighs and wipes his face with his hands. “Do you...do you have anyone to talk to?”

Sam shrugs again, slouches low so that his head rests on the table, between his arms. “I have friend online, but I don’t know anyone around here.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Castiel says, leaning back. “Shit, you can’t-” He sighs. “You can’t live the rest of your life inside.”

“I know,” Sam murmurs. “Where can I go?” Sam’s hands clench and unclench into fists- there’s a physicality to both Sam and Dean, to their anger and frustration. It’s heartrending. “We don’t think it’s a curse- we’ve tried everything, over and over. We’ve looked at all of the books and we can’t figure out what I am or what caused it. If there’s anyone else like me, even. It might just be me and Dean, for the rest of my life, until I run away or go crazy or actually turn into something dangerous.”

“Why are you so convinced you’re gonna be dangerous?” Castiel asks.

Sam smiles a little and looks up at Castiel. “I’ve got pretty good precedent for monsters being crazy and being monsters.”

“Why do you think you’re a monster?” Castiel asks.

* * *

 

The question is incisive, and it makes Sam wish that there were sweatshirts and sweaters that fit him, so he could climb up into it and be safe. His wings fold over him instead, instinctively.

“Sam,” Castiel says, and his voice sounds so tired. That’s what’s been most surprising about the time together, about talking to Castiel and getting to know him- it’s finding out how tired and kind he is. Careworn. “Sam, fuck, I’ve talked to you for about three hours, okay? And that’s not a lot of time. But fucking...trust me, okay? I’ve known monsters. Actual monsters. You’re not a monster. You’ve got fucking wings and what look more like antlers than horns to me and crazy ass bird feet, but you’re not a monster. You’re just strange as all hell. And that’s just different.” There’s the sucking air pause of Castiel smoking, and then, “You’re brother’s not scared because he thinks you’re a monster. You’re brother’s scared because he knows that you’re different, and that going to be hard for you.”

Sam wipes at his face, glad that his brown feathers obstruct the view so that Castiel can’t see him. “Have you talked to him?” he asks.

“I’ve talked to him enough,” he answers. “And I’d like to talk to him some more.” There’s a shuffling sound as Castiel stands up. “I think I’m gonna try to make you dinner. How the fuck does your kitchen work?”

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

There’s dinner on the table when Dean comes back, something in a bright yellow sauce and a pile of rice. Sam’s wearing jeans and an apron and the journalist, Castiel, he has some insane yellow powder all over his ass in lurid handprints.

“Your turmeric is old as balls,” Castiel says by way of greeting. “The curry should be okay, anyway. Where the fuck did your spices come from, anyway? Christ.”

“What’s turmeric?” Dean asks, because he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know where any of the spices came from.

“You see this yellow powder on my ass?” Castiel says. “Turmeric. Sit down. Eat.”

“What is this?” Dean asks. “What’s in it?” He can’t remember what was in the fridge, either and the smell in the room is riotous and huge.

“You didn’t have clean protein, so I used your peanut butter and pretty much all of salvageable vegetables. This is uh, shitty curry,” Castiel answers. “Not my best work, but at least none of it came out of a garbage can, eh?” He smiles.

“Clean protein?” Dean asks. He grabs some of the rice and some of the yellow dish.

“Castiel’s a vegetarian,” Sam answers. He loads up his own plate.

“Why?” Dean asks.

“I have enough to feel guilty about,” he answers. “Eat your dinner, you look like you don’t eat enough.”

“You’re one to talk,” Sam says. He takes a bite and chews thoughtfully.

It’s weird food. The spices aren’t what Dean usually goes for and the vegetables don’t quite go together right. He’s not one to turn down a meal he hasn’t cooked down though, so he eats it happily enough.

“So you don’t know what you are?” Castiel asks.

Sam shakes his head. “We have nothing,” he answers. “We’ve looked at all of the books for monsters in North America, we’ve gone through all of my stuff more times than I can count looking for hex bags, we’ve looked at everything- everything.” Sam throws his hands up and then buries them into his hair. “And my horns keep getting longer and-”

“They’re antlers,” Castiel says.

Dean frowns around a chunk of what must be sweet potato and says, “What makes you say that?”

“They’re covered in velvet,” Castiel says. “And the way they’re growing.”

Dean rubs at his eyes with his left and says, “That’s rules out Kinnara, then.”

Castiel laughs lowly. “Shit, I could have told you that was wrong,” he says. “Kid didn’t try to jump my bones when he met me.”

Sam blushes deeply. Looks down at the table a little uncomfortably. “I uh...dinner’s great,” he murmurs. “I think I’m gonna go take a bath. I’ll...uh...thanks.”

Sam gets up and lopes out of the room. His wings are pulled around him. Dean loves Sam’s wings and he hates Sam’s wings. He hates that his wings have made him hide. He loves that his wings are so emotionally expressive- Sam can’t hide what he’s feeling with them, and that’s a blessing in its way.

“How d’you know what a Kinnara is?” Dean asks.

Castiel shrugs. “Read a lot of books when I was a kid,” he answers.

Dean looks at Castiel, who’s taken a few bites of the food, but mostly he’s just pushed it around the plate.

“I made your brother a promise,” Castiel says. “I told him it would all be off the record. And I honor that.” He taps at his breast pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Examines it and frowns. Tosses it on the table and lights his last smoke. “He’s a smart kid. Brilliant.”

“We’re trying,” Dean says. “We’ve been trying.”

“He told me,” Castiel answers. “Why didn’t you tell Singer you’re alive?”

Dean looks up at him. He’s sitting eased in the chair now, rocked back a little bit. He’s not making eye contact. “You didn’t- you didn’t tell him anything, did you? Where we were? Anything?”

“Your father’s dead,” Castiel says.

Dean can’t figure out how to feel, suddenly. He feels dizzy and sharp and nauseous, all at the same time. He feels a sudden, deep relief. John’s gone. John won’t find them.

John won’t come barging through the door and kill Sammy before either of them even know what’s happened.

“What?” Dean asks.

Castiel looks at him now. “Bobby Singer told me your father died about three years ago. Some kind of a hunting acciden- oh, fuck,” he says. “Oh, fuck.”

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t- look, John and Sammy and Me, we’re all fucked up, okay? He was fucked up in his own...way. Just...hunters don’t become old dudes, okay? And Dad went into it wanting to burn out.”

Castiel takes a long drag on the cigarette and ashes into the coffee cup. Says, “You never really thought it was a Kinnara, did you?”

Dean smiles slightly. “The labels help,” he answers. “They make him feel like maybe he’s not alone in this.”

“He doesn’t have to be, though,” he says. “I think that’s where you two are being so goddamn dense. He’s not doing this alone, for the love of Christ, he’s doing it with you. And if you think I’m leaving without giving that kid my email address, you’re fucking high. Look, whatever’s going on with your brother, you can’t keep him in this creepy-ass house forever and you can’t-”

“Where would we go?” Dean demands. “What would we do? Join the circus and be a part of some kind of freak show? Settle down in the suburbs and live in some dumb house? What?”

Castiel stands up and shouts, “How about you use his goddamn brain, you sack of shit? The kid is fucking terrifyingly smart, okay? He’s been doing research and working since he was goddamn twelve or some shit- fucking, let him take online classes or something. Fucking, apparently a big part of hunting is research- let him be the best fucking librarian for you people-”

“We don’t do that anymore,” Dean interrupts.

“Like hell you don’t!” He retorts. “Christ, your brother knows and I’ve known you for maybe all of two days and I know.” Castiel rolls his eyes. Looks away. “I need a goddamn smoke.”

Dean looks at Castiel’s plate and he looks at his frame. He looks at the way he hangs himself through space, the way he’s slouched and scared.

“Why are you so invested in us?” Dean asks.

Castiel looks at him and says, “Do you have anything? Pot? Whiskey?”

Dean frowns at him and shakes his head. “Jesus, answer the question.”

“Answer mine,” Castiel spits back.

“What the hell happened to you?” He asks. “Who are you?”

Castiel grits his teeth and looks up at the ceiling. Says, “I’m going to bike back to the hotel.”

 

* * *

 

The air is cold, cold enough that it makes his lungs burn for the first half mile and that’s perfect. That’s all Castiel wants right now.

He’s biking and he’s ignoring the long black car that’s driving alongside him on the wrong side of the road, ignoring Dean’s music and occasional comment.

“You know, for a guy who asks questions for a living, you’re shit at answering them,” he calls from the window.

Castiel ignores him, bikes up the hill.

The air is like ice, chilly and damp in his lungs. He wishes he had a cigarette. He wishes he had a joint, the pot soothing that ache deep inside of him. He wishes he had some goddamn horse, but that never really goes away, just throbs inside of him like a raw nerve all the goddamn time.

He coughs a few times.

The ache in his lungs, that never really wants to go away either.

He keeps biking. The bicycle is pretty good, actually, and Chuck will want it back. He considers offering to buy the thing, if he has the dough for it. He likes the way it makes him work. It makes him feel tough, almost human.

His foot slips on the pedal, though, and then he starts coughing and then he can’t stop coughing in this cold air like razors in his throat.

There are hands on his shoulders suddenly, and for a split instant he’s back in that hell before he hears Dean say, “Whoah, Cas, I get it. No nosy question about you, okay. Fine, alright, I’m the one in the fire, just don’t kill yourself to make a point, alright?” Castiel keeps coughing though, he can’t stop. “Look, you’re here to look for ordinary monsters, okay? Just a shitty brother trying to keep his codependent relationship with his physically deformed younger brother together, okay? Just another story about backwoods abuse and how shitty Middle America is, okay? Regular monsters. You were looking for regular monsters and you knew one once you saw one.”

“F-fucking dumbass,” is the last thing Castiel can manage to say before he passes out.

 


	10. Chapter 10

He wakes up on a couch in front of a fire, wrapped in a goddamn cable-knit blanket.

He sits up and his head spins and he hears someone go, “Whoah, whoah, take it easy, okay?”

And then Castiel remembers. Ordinary monsters.

He looks over and standing next to him with what looks like a hot cup of tea is Dean Winchester, who might just be one of the biggest mother hens Castiel has ever encountered.

“Goddamn,” he murmurs. “Fucking hell, I need a smoke.”

Dean frowns. “Dude, I checked your lungs and no, you really don’t.”

He looks over at the table and there’s a stethoscope and an open first aid kit. He looks to the right and-

“Please,” he says, “please, get this out of me. I’ll sit here for the next six hours until my piss is fucking invisible as long as you get it out of me.”

A chrome IV stands on the other side of the couch, and Castiel has his eyes shut so hard, not looking at his hand.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, “Yeah, no problem, just, just deep breaths, okay? Sorry, I held onto this after Sam had a bout with stomach flu a couple years ago and you seemed really ill and I figured some fluids wouldn’t hurt or anything.”

Castiel concentrates on the babble and not on the way the top of his hand feels or the way his body feels. Doesn’t think about it. Not at all.

“Don’t like IV’s,” he says. “Don’t like needles.”

Dean huffs something like a laugh. “Dude,” he says. “I’ve uh, seen your arms.”

“It’s complicated,” Castiel answers.

He feels the smooth pressure of a bandage being put on and the stretch of elastic material to hold it in place and staunch the bleeding. “I don’t think that’s playing fair,” Dean murmurs. “I don’t think you would’ve taken ‘complicated’ from me or Sam.”

Castiel rolls his head back and stares, eyes closed, at the ceiling. Sighs and says, “I fucked up, okay? I was a kid, I was on my own, I was angry and lonely and the only people who seemed like they would listen to me had bad habits so I got bad habits, too. I OD’d in an editor’s office a while back and I’m clean now. Went to rehab, went cold turkey, got the shakes and all that shit. Probably why I passed out, okay? Heroin makes your lungs fuckin’ sad as hell. That’s it. That’s the show.”

There’s a long pause and Castiel opens his eyes. Looks at Dean, who’s hold his hand and stroking over the bandage and frowning intensely. Looks up at him. “Why were you angry?” He asks.

Castiel looks away from him and says, “Look, I don’t have a sexy, exciting story for why my mom is dead, okay? Just- just ordinary monsters.”

There’s that thumb, stroking over his hand again, and Castiel moves away. Gets up from the couch and walks away.

He doesn’t know where he’s walking in this house that isn’t his in the middle of nowhere, but he can’t stay there.

* * *

 

Dean watches Castiel walk away, however aimlessly, and he looks at his own hands. He looks at the IV, too, and he pulls the bag with its remaining fluid down and throws it in the kitchen garbage.

He looks at Castiel suspended in the doorway, the Kansas night rolling out in front of him like a blanket, like something made of velvet. Stars peering through overhead.

“Someone,” Dean says, “I can’t remember who, some Greek guy, he said stars were holes in the box that went over the world at night.” Dean’s not sure why he says it, but looking at Castiel in his big doorway, looking at the world in front of him, he believes it.

“I can go ahead and drive you back into town, or you can stay here for the night. Honestly, I’m not convinced you don’t have pneumonia or bronchitis or something and I’d love to give you some fucking antibiotics, but I get it if you want out,” he says.

Castiel turns, and he looks as tired as Dean feels. There’s a heaviness under his eyes and curve along his shoulders. There is an exhaustion that came from his memory.

Dean sees that now. Dean knows that now.

They have shared something together- they hold their own kinds of power over each other.

Castiel coughs again, and his breath makes little clouds on the air.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

He shuts the door.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel turns around and leans against the door. He closes his eyes. He can’t quite believe he’s about to do this.

Says, “When was the last time you got laid?”

When Castiel finally opens his eyes again, Dean is making  this spectacular face, like the guy is having a stroke or something. Equal parts confusion and attraction and hope and shame. Clears his throat and murmurs, “It’s been a while since I was with a guy. It was uh...kind of a desperate situation.”

Castiel looks at him, and he realizes suddenly that Dean was probably a kid when he and his brother left their dad. That things would have been hard for a long time. That Dean’s probably got some skeletons in his closet regarding how he paid for this house or put food on the table or paid for heat for a while.

There are some terrifyingly hard times written in Dean, and Castiel can’t help but wonder if Sam knows how hard they were.

He shakes his head and says, “Do you want to?”

Dean looks away, fist clenched. A body of restraint. Fighting himself. “Yeah,” he murmurs.

Castiel snakes his hand up his own torso, unbuttons a few buttons. Lets his shirt fall open so that Dean can see his skinny chest and his ugly tattoos and his handful of little scars. “Fucking fuck me, then,” he answers.

Dean comes through the kitchen like an animal, like a hurricane, like an earthquake, like a meteor, like a comet, like a sun. He’s all power and fury and desperate, consuming touch. He runs one hand into Castiel’s hair and tilts his head back, the other hand against the small of his back, his mouth biting desperate kisses into Castiel’s mouth, on his exposed neck, on his jawline. Hungry.

Castiel gasps into the air.

Dean bites and sucks a hickey like a goddamn teenager and Castiel cries out, “Fuck! Fuck!”

Dean stops, suddenly, and looks at him. Terrified. Gentle. His brow is soft, his eyes are clear.

“I’m okay,” Castiel pants. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. Don’t-” He leans forward and kisses Dean. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

Dean moans a little into his mouth, and Castiel’s hands finally stop their paralysis and run up Dean’s shirt, cold against his warm, muscular back. He’s built and solid under his touch. Indestructible. Incredible. Electric.

They stumble noisily up the stairs and into Dean’s room. They push each other onto the bed. They struggle with clothes and blankets and the dark.

Dean is messy and possessive and growling and vibrant in the dark. His hands are warm and huge on Castiel’s sides, on Castiel’s cock where he begins to furiously jack it.

Castiel howls at the touch, grips Dean’s sides and digs in, scratches at him, pulls at him.

Dean hisses aloud but keeps going, bites at Castiel’s bottom lip and tugs at it. Worries at it. Plays with it in his teeth until Castiel feels that phantom pain and the bright burst of blood. He moans heavily and pushes at Dean, unseating his balance.

Sits on top of him, hands on his hips.

There is no conversation, just Castiel moving in that way and sucking his cock.

* * *

 

 

Dean wakes up the next morning with a tattoo under his hands.

It’s a wing, rendered in dark ink. It’s blurred, done badly and probably a while back. Drapes along Castiel’s shoulder, outstretched.

He looks at it for a long time, and realizes that he wouldn’t have pegged Castiel for a guy with tattoos.

Probably wouldn’t have pegged him for an ex-junkie either.

Or a guy who just jumps bones out of the blue.

His breathing is wheezing but steady. He’ll probably damn near cough up a lung when he finally wakes up. Heavy and even but still sick and worried. Dean wonders how long he’s smoked. His voice has a gravel to it, and his lungs do, too.

The guy looks so much lighter like this. He looks vulnerable, actually undefended. He doesn’t look like he’s about to turn around and bite Dean or hit him or find his weakest point.

Dean thinks distantly of something- something he heard.

Loving someone is giving them the power to destroy you.

He shakes his head. He doesn’t love this guy. He doesn’t know how to feel about this guy. This angry asshole who stormed into his life and found his dirty laundry in ten minutes. This man who could send Dean to jail and his brother to some government think-tank and an early death. Or just an early death.

No, this, this isn’t love.

He doesn’t even know him. He shakes his head again.

Castiel coughs mightily, suddenly. Turns inward and clutches his stomach and coughs into his shoulder. Finally murmurs, “If that’s your big gay panic waking me up, fucking wait until after ten to have it, sunshine. Gotta get my beauty rest.”

Dean doesn’t know what this is.

 

* * *

 

Sam wakes up and he knows the house is different.

For one, Dean’s not awake yet, and for another, there is a dead, strange silence everywhere.

Sam lays awake in his bed, sitting upright, listening.

There is birdsong outside, and he whistles back to it absentmindedly. He learned some of the calls and what they mean a few years ago and while he can listen to their conversations, he can only really pretend to participate. It helps though, really.

He scratches the back of his head as he climbs out of bed, walks on tender feet to the kitchen, where there is no activity.

No one on the couch, either.

Sam takes a deep breath and ruffles his feathers a little bit. Tries to look a little cleaner, a little more orderly.

Brews a pot of coffee and waits for the awkwardness to ensue.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Castiel waits, as still as he dares, until he’s sure Dean is asleep again, and then he opens his eyes and turns very carefully to look at him.

Dean is probably about his age, a little younger even. He has short brown-blonde hair. He has full, pink lips. He has freckled skin. He has broad, muscled shoulders and stomach that’s just barely soft. Asleep, he looks weightless and free.

He has a younger brother who is growing into something, who is changing somehow into something different, un-human, and new.

Castiel looks at Dean, relaxed in the bed for a long time, and then he feels his chest seize again and he gets up to find a bathroom where he can cough in peace.

He tries to be quiet in the room made of tile. He turns on the sink and inhales the hot steam. He grips against the counter and tries to breathe as levelly and evenly as he can. He overdid it yesterday, and now his body is punishing him for it.

He shudders through a particularly rough inhale, glad that the air is warming enough that it doesn’t hurt so badly. There’s a knock on the door.

“Cas?” Sam asks. “Are you okay?”

Castiel coughs some more, tries to stammer out, “Fine!” He gasps and pants and coughs and coughs and then his lungs clear a bit and his vision isn’t swimming. He’s getting air. He’ll be okay.

Not today.

He washes his hands and face and then opens the bathroom door.

Sam glows with concern, wings spread wide, one hand scratching the back of his head. “You don’t sound fine,” he murmurs.

“Fucking, I fucked up my lungs and they’re still healing,” he says. “Do you have any more of that tea?” He coughs again, weakly.

Sam nods. “Yeah,” he answers. “And coffee, too.”

Jesus, does Castiel want a fucking smoke. He coughs instead and sits back down at the kitchen table. Wraps his hands around a mug that Sam has slid into his hands, full of hot water and a teabag.

“Can I ask you something?” Sam asks. “Off the record?”

Castiel looks up from the table to Sam. Castiel licks his lips, looks back down into the mug, where the tea begins to bloom in the water. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

“Why me?” Sam asks.

Castiel inhales long and slow. Grits his teeth and says, “My family was real religious,” he answers. “My dad and my brothers. Mom died...under weird circumstances, so we just pulled closer and tighter together. Fucking, didn’t talk to people outside of the family, didn’t do anything apart. Fucking, I can’t believe our rooms had doors, okay? And we just pulled tighter and tighter and tighter and Dad just got weirder and weirder and weirder. And the weirder dad got, the closer we pulled together until I wasn’t leaving the house or listening to any voices or words that weren’t either dad’s or read from some bible, okay? And then dad starting hitting. We were pulled in so close that we started self-destructing and no one could slip out clean.”

Castiel closes his eyes and traces the lip of his cup with his finger. It feel real, in his hands. Grounding.

“You can only hit someone so many times,” he murmurs, “before it all goes wrong.”

Neither of them says anything for a long, long time.

“My eldest brother,” he says. “Nine times, in the stomach with the eight-inch chef’s knife. Folded Japanese steel, a real piece of craftsmanship. First dad, then Michael, then Gabriel, then himself.” Castiel feels against his stomach, makes sure he’s entirely whole there again. Four times. “Only survivor. I was fourteen.”

He flicks his fingers, phantom weight of an imaginary cigarette telling him to ash. “Got passed around the foster system a little, turned eighteen, got the fuck out of dodge.” He opens his eyes and looks at Sam’s pale face across the table. “No one noticed how fucked up things were getting until my dad and all my brothers were dead. I saw you, I saw your house, I saw things that were fucked up. And I had to make sure. I had to be sure.”

They sit, quiet in the kitchen for a long, long time.

“My life is a soap opera, Sam,” he says. “And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I can’t tell you to not be in abusive situations or scary situations, but I can tell you to try your damndest to get out of them. And to not do heroin. Just fucking don’t do heroin, okay?”

Sam’s hazel eyes are big at the other end of the table. He nods a couple of times. “Okay,” he says.

“Off the record?” Castiel asks.

“Off the record,” Sam assures.

Castiel nods. Takes a sip of his tea.

Bitter and overbrewed.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

When Dean wakes up again, he’s alone in the bed, and he can almost believe it was all a dream. Almost, until he sits up and he sees his clothes on the floor in that way, the way that he knows means he had sex last night.

He sighs and rubs at his eyes. Staggers out of bed into a pair of boxers and a shirt and shuffles to the bathroom.

He looks at himself in the mirror and groans. He’s covered in hickeys like some kind of teenager. He rubs at the futiley, splashes water at them to no avail.

“Shit,” he murmurs.

When he gets into the kitchen, Castiel is nursing a cup of tea and he and Sam are listening to the radio while they cook something. He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, just listens to the way Castiel alternately sings to himself and talks to Sam, says things like, “You don’t wanna whip it too much, you’re making a custard, not a meringue.”

Sam sees him first, stops whisking. Doesn’t say anything just smiles in a loose way, a happy way.

It almost knocks the breath out of Dean, seeing it.

Sam and Cas, in the kitchen together, they don’t just look like friends, they look like family. They look real and solid and right together. Sam looks good laughing and talking and fucking communicating and Cas looks real and almost fucking healthy in front of the stove, wearing only Dean’s pajama bottoms and the flour on his ass.

Dean’s hit suddenly with how much he wants this. How much he wants someone who knows them and likes them and talks to them and cooks breakfast with them and sleeps in a real bed with him, in his real bed with him in his real room. He’s hit suddenly with how much he wants Castiel.

They’ve had something like four arguments and one really great fuck, and suddenly, Dean realizes, he’s in love with this guy.

Fuck, he loves the way he stands, lower back a little curved. Fuck, he loves the way he looks at everything critically, like it’s somehow affronted him or refused to answer a question. Fuck, he loves the way he wants answers from everyone. Fuck, he loves his rough voice, fuck, he loves the smell of cigarette smoke on him, fuck, he loves the tattoo on his back, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fuck, he’s so fucked.

He clears his throat and says, “Gonna go grab some bacon. I’ll be right back.”  
“Marlboro Reds,” Castiel says. Not a request, a demand. A blunt statement of fact. “Fuck, actually, wait a while, you don’t need bacon and I can’t bike back into town later without vomiting and I’m pretty sure my editor has tried to page me at least...thirty goddamn times by now.”

Dean rolls his eyes and stumbles back to his bedroom, trying not to give away the fact that he’s fucking panicking so hard he can feel it in his shoulders and calves and eyes, can feel it like if he doesn’t run or drive right fucking now he’ll do something he fucking regrets.

He climbs into his clothes and grabs his wallet and shuts the door behind himself.

He drives as fast as he can, takes the long way into town, turns the music up and grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles go white.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

 


	14. Chapter 14

Kevin’s lived here his whole life. His parents moved out to this slice of ass nowhere Kansas from San Francisco when he was just a baby and now he’s stuck out here, smarter than any of the other students and most of the teachers too. Alone and weird.

He knew when the Winchesters moved in, though, that something was up. Something weird. First it was the fact that the little brother never went to school, and then how he disappeared entirely.

Now that journalist went poking around, and he’s gone too?

Kevin finishes his shift waiting tables at the greasy spoon across from Mr. Shurley’s hotel, and then he grabs his bag from the back and bikes the long road up to the old house on the edge of town.

 

* * *

 

Dean’s driving so fast, he doesn’t even notice the kid. Doesn’t even think about him until later, when it’s too late.

* * *

 

Castiel grips the handle of the frying pan so tightly his hand aches. His knuckles turn white.

He keeps cooking, though. Finishes dipping the bread in the custard, finishes cooking them, plates them, hands some to Sam. Says, “I’m going to go freshen up. Don’t wait on me, eh, kiddo?”

Pulls the bathroom door closed behind himself and sits on the closed toilet seat and hugs his knees to himself because he’s so goddamn stupid.

Fucking, he should have known ol’ country boy like Dean would want him gone. Wouldn’t want him making breakfast or talking more to his brother; would just want one night to let the devil out and for Castiel to be gone like the bad decision he is.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck, fuck.”

He doesn’t let himself cry. He washes his face in cold water, puts on a bravery for Sam and steps out of the bathroom.

* * *

 

Sam knows something is wrong as soon as Dean leaves and Cas goes quiet. He knows something’s wrong as soon as Castiel slinks into the bathroom and shuts the door. Runs the faucet for a long time so that the only sound in the house is the running water.

Sam sits in the kitchen for a long time until Castiel walks out of the bathroom with damp hair, red eyes, and a smile on his face.

“You sure,” he asks, “that you’re brother’s never smoked anything? Or that you never have?”

Sam shakes his head. “I mean, Dean may have, but I’ve never done...anything.”

Castiel nods a few times. “Good kid,” he mutters. “Hey, eat your breakfast. You’re a growing boy.”

“What happened between you guys?” he asks.

Castiel closes his eyes and winces. Opens and closes his hands a few times before he says, “We fucked.”  
“I mean, yeah,” Sam answered. “But Dean’s not normally this...weird after having sex. He usually- he never brings them back here or anything but he’s normally not edgy like this.”  
Castiel pulls his legs up into the chair with himself, clutching his knees to his chest. “Any guys?” he asks.

Sam shrugs. “Yeah,” he answers. “I think so. I mean, if his porn is anything to go by he’s probably bisexual.”

Castiel sighs and rubs his face. Says, “Jesus, I need a cigarette.” He gets up from the table and back to the bedroom. When he comes back, he’s in his clothes and shoes.

He walks to the door and says, “I’ll be back.”

As he shuts the door, Sam murmurs, “No you won’t.”

He sits in the empty house just as alone as he started off for a long, long time. He listens to the world outside of the house, whose old wooden walls chafe more and more every day. He listens to the stillness all around him. He watches the sun track slowly across the table and the floor.

He sits in the kitchen for a long, long time before he gets up and walks upstairs to his bedroom.

He’s headed up the stairs when he hears a terrible crash and stops. Turns and looks and a window- a window is broken out.

He runs up the stairs, as fast as he can, but his wings are trying to flare and his talons are trying to close and it makes getting up the narrow stairs clumsy and loud and he’s trying- he’s trying- he’s trying and he gets to his bedroom and shuts the door and he knows, suddenly, that he’s been found.

A stranger’s seen him, no off the record.

He’s seen. He’s fucked.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t know why he threw the rock, but his hand burns with the phantom weight of it.

Kevin looks up into the face of the house, victorian and wrecked. It’s trying desperately to hold together, but there’s a ruination to it. A kind of old-fashioned ruinedness. It’s like looking at an old woman and knowing she used to be beautiful. It’s everything that’s wrong with this town. With this state. With his parents, with his school, with everyone. He screams, suddenly. Angry.

He hates this house, suddenly. More furiously than he’s hated anything. More than he’s hated this town and more than he’s ever hated his fucking eyes and fucking skin and fucking hair and fucking body.

“I hate you!” he screams and screams. “I hate you!”

His voice rings out in the flat land, the the autumn wind swallowing it suddenly, absorptively.

He covers his mouth with his jacket. Picks up another rock.

Kevin holds his hate in his hands. He looks at his hate before him. He clenches his jaw so hard his teeth hurt.

He almost doesn’t hear it.

A voice more terrified than his own. An answer.

“Why?” Someone shouts back. “Please, don’t. Please.”

* * *

 

Castiel bikes and bikes and bikes, his legs pumping furiously, his chest heaving, his shoulders sore. He stops to throw up twice and keeps going. His blood is thunder inside of him and he keeps going, because the sooner he gets to the hotel, the sooner he can lay on his bed and feel fucking sorry for himself because fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“You don’t want him,” he murmurs. “You don’t want him. You don’t want him. You don’t want him. You’re not allowed to want him. You don’t- you don’t. You don’t.”

He bikes, he bikes, he bikes. He ignores the ache in lungs. He ignores the burn in his body. He ignores the want that throbs inside of him all the time that tells him what he wants, what he needs.

“You don’t want him and you don’t want heroin. You want a smoke, a cup of coffee, and an actual slice of pizza.”

Castiel bikes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!  
>  Sorry it took me so long to update this! I got elbow deep in some really intense schoolwork! I hope to have this wrapped up by mid-January for you guys!


	15. Chapter 15

Castiel bursts into the hotel room and rushes into the bathroom and holds the edges of the sink. He lets his knuckles turn white with the effort of holding it. He lets his blood rush around through himself over and over. He grits his teeth. He stares at the drain.

He bites his lip and keeps biting. Bites it until it bleeds. Grips the porcelain and lets it burn through his skin.

It itches, manically, for the first time in months.

He knows that if he gets in his car, he will drive to the nearest city and fix. And he knows that it will kill him. He knows that if he does it, if he does this, he will die. He will kill himself if he goes there.

He screams. He screams and he keeps screaming and screaming and screaming. He’s not done screaming. He’ll never be done screaming.

He is an addict. This is the way he has broken himself. It doesn’t matter how long he’ll go, how long he’s gone  without it, but he’ll always want it. This is who he has become. This is who he has made himself as.

Castiel remembers rock bottom, and this is only marginally better.

He wants and wants and wants, and he cannot have. He wants heroin, he wants cigarettes, he wants a fucking shot, he wants Dean. He wants Dean and he cannot have him. He wants to fit into his weird life, his weirdly normal  life despite his father and his brother.

He keeps screaming.

Chuck bursts into the room suddenly, holding an axe.

“What the hell!?” he shouts.

Castiel looks at him. Small Chuck. Small and short. Holding his axe. Kind eyes, scared face.

Castiel laughs. He laughs so hard he lets go of the sink and falls to the floor.

His hands are bleeding where they clutched the sink, the raw edge of the porcelain bitten into his palms.

* * *

 

Sam can barely breathe.

“Who are you?” someone calls from outside. A stranger.

Of fucking course they’re a stranger. Sam doesn’t know anyone. He knows Dean and he knows one or two people online and he kind of knows Castiel. Barely. Sort of.

He stays there, frozen.

“Who are you?” they call again. A guy. Probably about his own age.

Sam closes his eyes and squints them shut as tight as he can. He holds his breath. He counts the seconds, long. No sound. No more questions.

He releases his breath.

“I’m Kevin,” they call from outside. “Are you okay?”  
Sam tries to breathe, but it’s hard. He tries to calm that terrified little voice inside of himself. He tries to remember what it was like to talk to people and interact with them. To be normal, or at least to pass. It’s so difficult. It’s nothing like what figuring out how to talk to Castiel, who was coaxing and gentle initially and then so broken up inside that talking came naturally. Came easily and simply.

This is so hard. So much can go wrong. So much already has.

“I’m fine,” he answers, and his voice doesn’t crack too badly. “I’m fine. Honestly. There’s just a lot of glass and you st-startled me.”

“Do you need help?” the stranger calls back.

“No,” Sam replies. “Please. Just leave. Go. Go and don’t come back.”

There’s a long pause. If Sam weren’t listening for it, he wouldn’t have heard it.

Footsteps. Headed away.

Glass be damned, Sam sinks down onto the stair underneath himself and tries to start breathing again.

* * *

 

Chuck pulls Castiel up from the floor and pulls him out of the bathroom and plops him down on his bed. He pulls a chair up to the end of the bed and he looks at him with his shaking, manic way. He’s like a very small dog or a rabbit. Easily spooked.

“What the hell?” he repeats. “I mean, I know we have a bug problem, but it couldn’t have been that bad.” He freezes and the color drains out of his face. “Oh god,” he mutters. “It’s that bad, isn’t it?”

“I want heroin,” Castiel blurts out. “I mean...I always want heroin. But now more than usual.”

Chuck’s eyes get a little wider again and he nods once or twice. He pauses and opens his mouth. Closes it again. “This is out of my depth,” he finally says.

“It was out of mine, too,” Castiel answers. He laughs, bitterly.

“I mean, really?” Chuck asks. “Heroin? Damn.” He looks at the floor and then at Castiel’s hands. He looks at his eyes, into him, and says, “Okay, but is this about heroin or about something else? Or is it heroin and something else? Or is it just heroin?”

“Have you ever loved someone you weren’t supposed to?” Castiel asks. He laughs again. “This isn’t my coming out, sorry, that was...misleading. Have you ever just...loved someone foolishly? What was the worst decision you ever made?”

“They needed me and I wasn’t there,” Chuck answers. No hesitation.

Castiel pauses and says, “Why?”

“I was scared,” Chuck answers. “I wasn’t...fear makes people do terrible things.” His eyes contact breaks. His leg jiggles up and down. He wants a drink, Castiel can tell.

Ordinary monsters.

“If I’d been there, I would have died, but I wasn’t and I lived. If I’d been there, maybe they would have lived. There are a whole bunch of minor contingencies, butterfly effect and everything, but yeah. I killed them. I wasn’t there, and they’re dead. And that’s on me.” He looks at Castiel, into his eyes. Shaking. Vibrating in space. “I was never a very good firefirghter.”

Castiel looks at him until Chuck flinches away. People have always found it unsettling, the way Castiel looks.

They’re all so interesting, though. So beautiful and so strange. Everything they are, it is written on them. It’s a waste not to read the stories the press into him. It’s a waste not to put them down on a page, to render them into a language that other people can read.

“I was scared and I can’t take back what I did. That’s on me. That’s who I am now,” Chuck continues. “It sounds to me like there are people you can still talk to. You still have options. There’s still time.” He pauses and stops shaking for just a moment. “It sounds like maybe you are supposed to love someone. I don’t know. Just a thought. Please stop screaming. I’ve got a first aid kit in the office if you need it.”

He leaves.

Castiel sits in the room for a long time and tries to figure out why things aren’t this simple.

* * *

 

Dean stands in the grocery store and he looks over the shoulder of the kid who’s checking him out. At the cigarettes.

He’s got a pack of bacon, a couple of boxes of noodles, some milk.

It’s the first time since he was about fifteen that Dean’s enjoyed sex. That he’s more than enjoyed it, really. That he didn’t feel guilty about it the morning after, about either taking the money or pushing the cute girl out of the cheap motel room or leaving before she woke up. It’s the first time he hasn’t felt like he’s somehow dirtier for it. It feels right.

If it feels right, why is he panicking?

Why can’t he give himself something he wants? Why is this bad? Why does this have to be a bad thing? Why can’t he have a relationship, one that might work? Why can’t he have his own life, out here?

He doesn’t have to hide his whole life, and neither does Sam. Not really.

If he buys the cigarettes-

“Sir? Will that be all?” The kid repeats. Dean turns, looks at him.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, uh...kind of a weird day. Um, can I get two packs of Marlboro ultra lights? Silvers? Whatever. Whichever Marlboro has the least smoke.”

The kid nods and fishes to boxes out of the cabinet behind himself. Finishes checking Dean out.

Dean grabs the two paper bags and walks outside, to his car.

He drops the groceries. The milk bottle spills.

“First of all,” Castiel says, “Fuck you.”

He looks exhausted. His hand his bleeding. He’s pale, scary pale, like he’s worked too hard. His hair is more of a mess than usual.

“Fuck you,” he repeats, “for making me care about you and your fucking brother. Go to hell. Go straight to hell.”

Dean smiles, disbelieving. In spite of himself. He’s known Castiel for less than a week and he knows what all of this means. He speaks this language.

“Second,” he pants, “I rode my bike to the hotel and then ran here when I saw your car, so if you want me to have more sex with you, you’re driving, dumbass.”

Dean bends down. Fishes out the bacon and the cigarettes. Throws a pack to Castiel.

“Get the fuck in,” he answers.

 


	16. Chapter 16

The cigarette lighter smells like burning hair when Castiel fishes it out of the element and holds it to his smoke. Inhales long and deep. Coughs a little.

“Goddamn,” he murmurs. “Shit. God-damn. These’re fuckin’ pussy smokes. Might as well have gotten Misty Slims, Jesus.” He coughs a little more and inhales again. Holds it inside of himself for a long time before he lets it out.

It trails out of the window. Open to the cold air.

It’s been a long, long time since the Impala smelled like cigarette smoke.

Dean glances over at him and raises an eyebrow. “Look, man, count yourself lucky I bought you smokes in the first place. You know what they used to call ‘em? Coffin nails.”

Castiel shakes his head and smiles. Flicks off the ash and brings the thing back to his mouth. “Yeah, yeah,” he answers softly. There’s this barest ghost of a smile on his face. Something fond and embarrassed. Something kind of innocent, in a weird way.  He stays quiet as he finishes the thing.

Looks in the box. Rubs out the butt in the old fold down ash-tray on the dash.

“Those two packs for the week, okay?” Dean says. “Can you do that? I’ve been in your car, I know what your regular looks like, but...can you try?”

Castiel smiles a little bit. He looks down at his lap. At his hands. Fingernails stained nicotine yellow.

“You don’t waste any time, do you?” Castiel says softly.

Dean looks away from him back to the road. Shifts in his seat. Adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t...I don’t know, okay? I just...I know that it’s taken me this long to-”

“To what?” Castiel interrupts. He fidgets similarly in space. Runs his fingers through his dark hair and settles down a little further into his seat. Dean looks at his hand for a moment, but then Castiel shifts it, self-consciously so Dean can’t quite see it. He can see his arms though. He can see that tiny little ghost of a scar in his elbow. So small.

So big.

“To… to find you,” he continues. He pauses. Looks back out of the window, through the windshield. Fixes his eyes on the horizon out in front of himself. “I grew up so sure I would die alone,” he says. “My gun wouldn’t go off, I’d grab the wrong knife, I’d slip, and whatever I was hunting would kill me. I’d die anonymously with no one to miss me. Sam...Sam always knew. Always wanted out. Hunting, though, that was my job. Who I am. Who I was, I guess. Never meant to settle down or have a real job or,” he laughs, suddenly, “pay taxes. I pay taxes, dude, I support the local schools.” He laughs again. Not really a mirthful noise. A surprised one.

He doesn’t say anything more for a few minutes before he continues, his voice a little lower still. “And then all of the stuff with Sam and his wings happened and kept...keeps happening and I just figured. I figured, you know, that maybe I wouldn’t die out there or die quite...quite alone, but I wouldn’t die...it would just be me and him. And that would be as big as the family or the world would ever get.” He shifts again. Looks back over to Castiel.

“I’m twenty-three, okay? And I’m not sure how old you are. But I want you around for at least...at least another good sixty years or so, okay?” He says. “And I’m not asking you to feel the same way or anything but...but if you do, I guess I’m asking you to maybe live like you want to be here.”

He glances over at Castiel and then looks back at the road.

He grips the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Castiel huffs a small laugh. “Fucking hell,” he says. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?” He fishes another cigarette out and rolls it between his fingers. Tucks it behind his ear.

“I’ll try,” he answers. “I’m not good at- I’m not good at being with people. I’m angry. I’m kind of- I’m kind of damaged and kind of a son of a bitch. But you make me feel like I’m almost all of a person. And that’s almost like being a good person. That’s close enough to being a good person.” He looks over at Dean. His eyes are so blue. So clear. So full of light and fire and pain and love. Frighteningly full of love. Not really trusting. Not really giving. Burning. Consuming. Hungry.

He looks like someone who has been broken and has become pointed and jagged and scarred putting themselves back together again.

Someone hurt deeply. Unfixably.

Someone who loves him.

Dean opens his mouth to reply when he sees that the window in stairwell has been knocked out, and then he is all jerking movement and running and panicfearagony to get to Sam.

Find Sam. Get Sam.

Shit.

What has his selfish, stupid ass done to his little brother now?

 


	17. Chapter 17

Sam hears his the car pull into the gravel drive and then he hears the vicious slam of the door opening and his brother shout out, “Sam! Sammy?”

Sam sits in the stairwell, still shaking, still shaken, still crying. Still wrapped up tightly in his freakish fucking wings and hyperventilating.

Thumping feet up the stairwell, hands on his body.

“Sam?” Dean barks. Terrified. Thunderstorm. “Sam, are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened? Sam?”

Outside, the sound of car doors closing.

“Some kid,” Sam manages around the breaths that come unevenly and messily. “He didn’t know. Just threw a rock and screamed. Walked away.”

“Okay,” Dean says, and his voice still sounds tight but it’s less loud now. “Okay, hey, Sam, I need you to come out, okay? I need to see your face. Can you do that? Come out of the tent?”

This is not the first time he’s pulled inward into the wings. They do this, this defensive thing when he’s scared, when the world is too loud, when the rain falls too hard or when Dean’s drinking leaves him shaking and slurring through the house. This is not the first time Dean has talked to him like this.

Inside the tent.

The freakshow.  
His brother’s voice is muffled through the feathers and the world is dark. No light pierces through them, thick like the needles on a high pine tree. The faintest smell of cigarette smoke drifts between the musky, earthy smell of Sam’s feathers.

Sam keeps breathing. Pulls his wings away and stands. Dean backs up away from him.

Sam keeps breathing.

“Hey,” Dean says, “Hey, alright, I need you to take a deep breath for me, okay?” His hands are up, a placating gesture. Calming.

Something he might do to a wild animal.

Sam’s heartbeat speeds and his wings flare out, uncontrolled. Uncontrollably. He backs up the stairs. Further up. Closer to his room.

Broken glass crunches under his feet. He doesn’t feel it, though. He doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t feel every step of the stairs on the way up or the door push open behind him.

“Sam,” Dean says. “Sam, I need you to tell me-”

There’s this look in Dean’s eye. This worry that’s more than worry. This expression of fear. Terror.

Dean knows. He knows about this terrifying, this terrible thing that he’s becoming. This freak in a cage, this monster in a box, this hurricane in a bottle.

The window in the attic, in his bedroom, shatters and Sam turns and runs.

Big enough that he can leap through it, this empty frame full of sky.

The air is against his skin, falling for this barest moment and then something blinding and strange happens and he is suddenly beating, running, charging against the sky. Turning over and around and up and up and up.

And he is away.

 


	18. Chapter 18

It was incredible, watching it happen. The glass exploding into the house and then Sam taking off. Falling for a moment and then becoming this powerful, incredible smear of brown and gold against the sky.

“That’s...not great,” Castiel murmurs. He looks at the house, with two broken windows like destroyed eyes.

He can already feel the long walk ahead in his lungs.

* * *

Dean watches his brother fly away, and he suddenly realizes that everything is out of his control.

Sam flies East, into the woods and away from the house. Away from town, too, which is a good thing because Dean knows for a fact that the rednecks keep their hunting rifles at an arm’s length goddamn constantly.

Sam flies East and that’s a bad thing because there aren’t roads out there so he’ll have to hoof it and-

Castiel rushes inside and says, “What happened?”

“I don’t...I’m not,” Dean starts and then he feels something catch in his throat. He coughs, clears it out. “I’m not sure,” he answers, a little more gruffly than he means to.

Castiel nods. “Alright,” he says. “Grab your flashlights and some water. Let’s go.”

Dean nods and wants to move but stays frozen for just a moment. Seized. Terrified. “Cas,” he says. “Cas what do we do, what if someone saw what if-”

Castiel snaps a few times, a sharp sound. A small thunderclap. “Hey,” he says, “one goddamn crisis at a time, okay? Fucking, find your brother, then panic about this. Flashlights, Dean, where do you keep them?”

Dean looks at Castiel’s bright blue eyes, his serious face. Focuses on his low voice. “Under the sink, in the toolbox. Military surplus. Are you wearing sturdy shoes? Would you rather stay here and patch the window?”

Castiel shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “Come on, basket case. Let’s find your brother.”

Dean takes his hand and walks back down the stairs.

* * *

Sam doesn’t really realize what he’s done until he crashes into a tree and looks down and puts together the fact that he was flying.

The branch has him contorted at a specific angle and something’s in his hair and he’s sure he scraped his arm and wow this is….this is intense.

The air is cold against his bare chest. The bark is rough against his skin. Orange and dying leaves crinkle noisily against and under him. He laughs suddenly and shifts, rearranging himself into a more comfortable position, letting himself rest fully on the branch.

He hears and noise and turns.

A nest. A bird. A red cardinal with a bright orange beak. Furious dark eyes. It looks at Sam for a long moment, predatory. Fearless, for something so small. Cocks its head back and forth, like poppy something in and out of place.

Sam reaches out with his wing, extending a long feather forward.

The bird chirps, as if recognizing him and hops forward once, twice, and onto his arm.

“Hey there, friend,” Sam murmurs. “This is...this is weird for you.”

The bird chirps again, as if realize that this this abnormal behavior. Doesn’t move, though. Just stays there.

Another bird flits onto a branch and chirps. The cardinal on Sam’s shoulder chirps back.

“Hi,” Sam says. “I’m Sam.”

The birds both chirp again.

* * *

 

They’ve been walking for about three hours when it turns colder and the sun begins to go down. It’s another forty five minutes before Castiel starts to cough.

“Hey,” Dean says, turning around. His flashlight is on. A small comfort. “Hey, look, if you need to head back-”

“Dean,” he gasps, “Fucking Christ, I couldn’t make it back on my own and you need to find your brother. Jesus. Keep going.”

They march on. The leaves crunch under foot. Under the smell of cold, autumn air is the scent of old burning leaves and rotting apples, driven bad by the early frost.

Dean gave Castiel his coat about two hours ago. He rubs his arms over the leather over and over. Follows Dean. Looks up at the night sky full of stars and tries to find weird silhouettes.

His chest hurts. Not quite as bad as it did when he passed out on the bike, but pretty sore. Aches. It feels hollow inside, like it did when he went through rehab. A shallow feeling.

He has to help Dean find Sam.

He rubs his arms over and over. If nothing else, the rough texture of the leather is good to touch and keeps his hands from going numb. One more thing that keeps his circulation going. One more set of small movements.

Dean moves ahead of him purposefully. Castiel lets him take on some distance. Maybe Sam is just up ahead. Over the crest, beyond those few trees. Probably is. Probably roosting or something. Dean will find him soon enough and then they can all limp back to the house. Maybe there’s a bathtub Dean will let him use. Maybe he’ll let him sleep with him again.

He rubs at his arms. Walks on.

* * *

 

Two birds quickly became three and three quickly became thirty and Sam’s not even sure how the rabbits go up here but suffice to say, Sam’s up in this tree, a good forty feet in the air, and he’s surrounded by an outright menagerie.

He’s not sure how he can still see. The sun went down behind him about four hours ago, maybe more, and yet there’s still enough light (weird, golden light) to see every feather and bit of fur that’s surrounding him. Chirping sometimes, but all very close and very...affectionate. Very dear, in some weird way.

One of the little bitty birds resting on his head flutters its wings. Beds down a little deeper into his hair. Another one on his shoulder pulls a little closer into his neck. The rabbit in his hands sleeps on, peacefully.

Some of them are sleeping, some of them just seem content to be there. On him. Near him.

Whatever it is, Sam knows that it’s probably not good.


	19. Chapter 19

Castiel feels something against his skin, something like light coming through an open window on a summer’s day.

* * *

 

“Sam!” Dean calls. “Sam! Where are you? Sam!”

He calls like he’s been calling all evening. All night. He calls like Sam is the shore and he is a drowning man, because what is he without Sam? Who is he?

Dean thinks of every selfish reason he took Sam and left John there in the middle of Wisconsin, and he’s knows it’s more than saving Sam’s life.

“Sam!” he calls out again.

He turns around, hoping to see Castiel’s pale, wan face as he pants behind him, something comforting and profane to say to him, but Castiel has disappeared and suddenly it’s just him in these woods. It’s him torn between finding his brother, who he can’t live without, and...and who might be the love of his life.

He scratches so hard at his scalp he’s surprised he doesn’t draw blood. Sinks to his feet and pops back up.

“Sam!” he calls again. “Sam! Please, Sam, please come back!”

He breathes, standing in the woods for a few minutes, more alone than he’s been in years. More alone than when he carried Sam from the burning husk of the old house. More alone than when he ran his fingers through his brother’s hair from the driver’s seat, moving away from the only life he’d ever known.

His breath hangs on the air, just visible in the darkness in front of his eyes.

He keeps breathing, and something changes. His breath becomes more visible, hell, everything becomes more visible. It is like there is some cloud of light not too far away. Shimmering like gold in the bottom of a riverbed.

Dean looks at it and looks behind himself.

“I’m coming back,” he says, to Castiel behind himself. Somewhere in the darkness. “I’m coming back, I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He moves onward, knowing somehow that the light is Sam.

* * *

 

A tendril of ivy has crept around the tree to twine through his hair, around his horn- his antlers like a crown. They’re larger than they were a few hours ago. They don’t ache like everything usually does when he grows and changes like this, they’re just...larger. When he reaches out to touch them, they have points and shape and grace.

New green leaves are on the tree. Fragrant pink and white flowers pop up amidst the leaves. Five petaled.

“This is not good,” he murmurs, shaking his head.

He hears something, suddenly, and he freezes. Maybe a voice, not too far off. He stops breathing for a moment, and then he definitely hears it again. Out beyond this light that surrounds him, in the darkness in the woods.

“Dean?” he calls out. “Dean?”

“Sam!” he definitely hears called back to him. “Sam, where are you?”

Sam looks at all of the animals surrounding him and gently flaps his wings a couple of times. The birds peep and flit. The one or two mammals up there with him move to sturdier branches. Sam holds onto the rabbit and closes his eyes and falls out of the tree as gracefully as he can.

He more or less plummets, but he remembers to roll and shift the right way so he doesn’t hurt himself. He sets the rabbit down.

The grass greens under his feet. The rabbit stays where he put it and twitches its nose.

“Dean?” he calls again.

He hears footsteps and walks toward them.

 

* * *

 

Sam walks out of the dark and Dean suddenly realizes that while Sam might not be human, he’s certainly not a monster. Not any kind he would have known at any rate.

His chest is bare but he does not look cold. Instead, he looks like a summer’s day, like a small sun brought down to earth. The golden, warm light doesn’t just surround him, it seems to come out of him. It catches every shining feather, every tanned muscle, everything. His wings are more than exposed, they’re presented. Majestic. They don’t look awkward or out of their element, they look like they’re at home, and Dean knows unshakably that they are. That there is something in the woods that Sam owns and that owns Sam.

The trees have greens around him. The grass has too.

A circlet of ivy has twined naturally over his head. His antlers have grown, too.

For all of this, though, Sam looks like he did when he was twelve and they had to run away because of the total knowledge that their father would literally kill him. He looks terrified. He looks like he needs someone to tell him that everything- everything will be okay.

Dean walks forward and hugs his brother, and his brother grasps and slumps and pulls into it desperately. Like something inside has released.

“You’re not,” Dean says, because he knows the question his brother is asking himself. “You’re not a monster. You never were.”

His great wings droop and cover both of them.

“Cas,” Sam snuffles into his shoulder, into the leather of his jacket. “Where’s Cas?”

Reality crashes back in him.

“He fell behind,” Dean answers, like his blood is suddenly mercury. “Must not have been more than a hundred yards. He wasn’t doing great and I was so-”

Sam pulls out of the hug and wipes his face. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

They walk back through the woods, urgently.

The green grass grows like a trailing carpet everywhere Sam stepped.

A small rabbit follows them, and a great menagerie of birds follows the rabbit.


	20. Chapter 20

Laying in the window seat in the warm sun. Watching the birds in the trees in the backyard. A book open in his lap. Unread.

A calm before the storm.

* * *

 

The wood is a different place next to Sam. It’s brighter for one, but there’s also an abundance of greenery suddenly, despite the fact that it’s early fall. The trees seem closer, friendlier. And Dean’s almost certain that he can hear birdsong.

He’s trying to focus enough to look for Castiel, but there’s something beautiful happening all around. There’s this miracle that’s occurring, this sudden growth.

He tries to put away his thoughts, his worry, and focus on shapes on the ground. He tries to keep his breath steady, his nerves calm, but it’s hard.

He keeps walking calling Castiel’s name every few minutes.

“Dean,” Sam says suddenly. “He’s here.”

His lips are blue. His skin is pale. He is curled around himself in the fetal position, protective, tight.He shivers. His brow is tight. He doesn’t seem to be conscious.

“Cas,” Dean says, bending over him. “Cas, wake up. Wake up for me, okay? We have to go home. You have to come home with me.”

He’s not responsive. He’s not moving, he’s not speaking, he’s not...he’s not there. Barely breathing.

“Cas,” Dean says, “Cas, please. Please. We have to go home. We have to go home, baby.”

“Dean,” Sam murmurs.

His skin is cold under his fingers. Clammy.

“Dean,” Sam says, “Dean I think I can help.”

He looks up at his brother. Wings flared outward. Antlers high and wide and pointed and strong. A great sun contained inside of him. Golden.

His eyes are like great pools of light, shining out of him.

He looks back down at Castiel.

“Please don’t leave me.”

Sam bends down and touches Castiel. Creases his brow and shuts his eyes.

* * *

 

“You need to come back,” someone says to him.

Castiel looks back over his shoulder. He looks at the figure too big to be standing the archway of his house. A figure made of light. He tilts his head slowly, looking at the figure. Looking at his weird shape, like an angel.

Angels are real, this he knows with great certainty, for the bible told him so. They don’t come to Earth that much anymore, though.

“You need to come back, we’re waiting for you,” the figure says again.

Castiel feels something wet and warm on his skin and a distant heat.

He looks down.

A great pool of blood coming from his belly. His blood on his hands. Bright red.

 

* * *

 

As he wakes up on the floor of the forest, he remembers all of the things that had been and he gasps with the pain of it.

Someone is holding him close- Dean is holding him close. Hands in his hair. Face in the crook of his neck.

“Please,” he says.

It is hard to see for how bright everything is.

“I’m not,” he chokes, breath dry in his throat. Cold and also warm. “I’m here. Right...right fuckin’ here.”

 


	21. Chapter 21

When he opens his eyes again, the sun has risen and he’s in a warm bed. Familiar with Dean’s smell. Sheets soft from being overwashed. Warm over his body.

He blinks heavily at the ceiling. Takes a long, deep breath of dry, cold air. He looks to his side.

“Where did you...even get...a goddamn tank?” He asks, panting between words.

He feels Dean’s body as a warm, steady line alongside him. He feels Sam’s gaze as a constant in front of him.

“When my wings started coming in, Dean had to put me under and pull them...out of me,” he explains. “It’s leftover. Never hurts to be prepared, anyway.”

Castiel turns again to look at Sam in front of him.

He has a blanket draped over his shoulders and his wings pulled in front of his chest. They look bigger. All of him looks bigger. His antlers certainly came in all at once. He looks primal. Wild.

Castiel brings his hand up to his head and gestures loosely. “Did they hurt?” he rasps.

Sam shakes his head. Hits the wall and flinches. “No,” he says. “I wish I knew how to get rid of them, though. The doorways were bad enough to begin with.”

Castiel smiles at him.

He looks over to his other side. Dean is asleep, brow easy, fully dressed.

“He loves you,” Sam says.

“He loved you first,” he replies.

“He’s stuck with me,” Sam says. “I’m his brother. He gets to pick you and that’s important.”

Castiel looks from Dean to Sam. “I think he picked you a long time ago, kid,” he answers.

Speaking is exhausting, and he slips back under.

* * *

 

When Dean wakes up, Sam is sitting on a kitchen stool in his room, knees pulled up to his chest and his wings wrapped around himself. His eyes peer out at them. Bright.

He sits up slowly, careful not to disturb Castiel who is curled up around his own body in the fetal position. Safe.

“I think,” Dean says, “we need to call Bobby.”

Sam’s wings twitch outward, opening him up a bit. “What, really?” He asks, face opening up in surprise.

“Yeah, really,” Dean answers. “I mean...Dad’s dead. And Bobby’s- he’d help. Or he’d try. And he has a bigger library than we could ever find so maybe he could help figure out what you are.” He pauses. Says, “I don’t think I’ve done right by you.”

Sam stretches his wings out forward, his arms following the line. Long and dark, made of browns and golds. “When I jumped, I was just running on instinct,” he says. He stretches out, the wings nearly touching Dean. “I didn’t even know I had that- I have this- inside. I didn’t know. You couldn’t have. I think we did our best.”

Dean reaches forward ever so slightly and touches the barest edge of Sam’s wing.

Sam smiles at him, nervously, on the other side of his body.

“You can’t stay inside for the rest of you life,” he says.

Sam nods. “Yeah,” he answers. “I know.”

The ivy wound through his hair and his antlers is still alive.


	22. Chapter 22

Castiel blinks awake slowly, to the view of Dean’s eyes, green and piercing and serious and dear, dreadfully dear. His face is buried in the blankets, just barely peering out over the edge of a pillow. Golden brown hair and freckles, pink lips, a tired face.

He smiles, reaches across, wraps his hand into Castiel’s.

“Hey bright eyes,” he murmurs. “You think you’re back in the land of the living?”

Castiel smiles at Dean, almost despite himself. Moves his heavy hand up from under the covers and flips him off.

Dean smiles a little wider. “Yeah,” he says. “Wouldn’t have you any other way.”

His throat and sinuses feel cold and dry. He coughs and Dean sits slowly up. Reaches over to the nightstand and grabs a bottle of water. “Here,” he says. “Sam said that the oxygen made him feel dry, too, when he was a kid.”

Castiel removes the mask carefully and drinks greedily. Feels a little more solid for it, too.

There’s a IV stand next to the bed but nothing in it. A discrete bandaid on his hand.

He looks over at Dean and raises an eyebrow.

“We were worried if we didn’t get some stuff in you, you’d uh...you’d slip away again,” he explains. “It was just saline. And some antibiotics. But mostly saltwater.”

Castiel nods and stops look at the bandaid. Looks over at Dean, mussed hair and old t-shirt. He moves through the space between them, as small as it might have been and fists his t-shirt into his hands, brings him close, as roughly, as strongly as he can and brings him forward, crashing into his mouth.

Teeth and lips and tongue and desperation. Mouth tasting stale like iron and acid, his own breath still tasting like cigarettes, he’s sure.

Dean pants into it, runs his fingers like fire over his scalp and tugs at his hair, bites into him, at him. Rough. Anxious. Consuming,

Castiel runs his fingers under Dean’s shirt, pushes him back onto the bed, against the headboard. Becomes dizzy, his head swimming.

“Whoah, whoah,” Dean says, going from love drunk to sober with startling efficiency. “Whoah, dude, you’re still-”

“I’m not that fucking fragile-”

“Cas, you passed out in the woods and have spent the past two days asleep,” he says, sharply. “I want to fuck you like- I want to fuck you until your eyes cross and we both walk a little funny for a few days so badly that my teeth hurt but I feel like you should maybe have some solid food first, okay? Maybe can wait a few hours?”

Castiel leans back and looks at Dean, underneath him, all strong muscles and protection. Safety. He wants to ride him like a fucking pony but his stomach also growls hugely and he also realizes that he really wants a turkey sandwich and a smoke.

“Do you have any peanut butter?” he asks.

Dean smiles at him again, like a ray of light.


	23. Chapter 23

hey climb out of bed and head to the kitchen, where Dean fries up all of the eggs in the fridge and brews an enormous pot of coffee.

Sam sits nervously at the other end of the table. He looks shy again. Skittish. He looks too big for his skin. Still adjusting to the great growth of antlers atop his head. His wings look bigger, too. A little stronger. More like a part of Sam rather than some embarrassment attached half-heartedly to his back.

Castiel coughs for a long minute and takes a sip of his coffee. Black, lots of sugar. Burns his tongue.

Says, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Sam flinches.

“Stop,” Castiel says. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Sam looks down. Fiddles with his mug full of his own coffee (sugar and cream). “You got hurt,” he mutters.

“I knew what I was getting into. And my hurts, they go back a lot deeper than one night in the woods, okay? So fucking stop. You’re worse than your goddamn brother for puttin’ off bad vibes,” Castiel answers, drinking his coffee.

Three plates slide onto the table. Toast and eggs. Bacon on two of the plates. It smells divine.

“Hot sauce?” Castiel asks.

“Try them first,” Dean says, poking through his own eggs and shoveling them into his mouth.

Castiel rolls his eyes.

Later, he will call his editor, Dick Roman, and he will tell him that he won’t be back. He’ll go back to his hotel room and gather his things. He’ll dump them in Dean’s room and they’ll argue about where they go. Dean will call Bobby and confirm that neither he nor his brother are dead. Castiel will begin to teach Sam the handful of things he remembers of yoga that aren’t explicitly sexual; he will begin to teach Dean what he recalls from the Kama Sutra. He will demand they go to the grocery store for green vegetables and tofu.

And Dean will roll his eyes at him. Call him a goddamn hippie, and a nosy one at that.

Sam will walk outside, hopefully unafraid.

And they’ll be a family. A wildly dysfunctional family in an old house in the middle of nowhere.

And Castiel knows, way deep in the bottom of himself, that he will wake up some mornings and resist that hard tug to head to the city and fix. That it will never go away completely.

But he also knows that this here, this can be enough.

This can be its own kind of peace.

He flips Dean off as he limps to the fridge for a bottle of hot sauce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all! I so hoped you guys enjoyed it. Your comments were always a bright spot in my day.


End file.
